When I was growing up, I was never told to eat my brussels sprouts. Or my lima beans. Or my parsnips. This isn’t because I was some infant prodigy vegetable lover, but because these vegetables, and many others, never graced our family table. My father, who is a gourmand in many other ways, has a decided aversion to most vegetables. (He claims he’s allergic to beets, having developed a rash when fed them at the age of two. He has not eaten beets in the intervening sixty years. I am skeptical.) We did have a green salad almost every night with dinner, and my mother does make the world’s best Caesar salad, but I never encountered kohlrabi or rutabagas until I was all grown up and eating them in my own kitchen, so I never developed a distaste for those little beauties.

Because of my sheltered childhood, I have a strong and lasting love for cruciferous vegetables – those strongly flavored, cancer fighting, generally awesome brassicas that are despised by children the world over. Bring on the Brussels sprouts! Cue the cauliflower!

Of all the cruciferous vegetables, I would say cabbage might just be my favorite. It’s versatile, performing equally well in salads and stir fries, it’s sweet, and salty, and perfectly crunchy, and best of all, it lasts a good long time in my refrigerator drawer.

Cabbage Photo.

That is why when I saw the recipe in the New York Times for kale and cabbage gratin, I knew I hit the jackpot. Cabbage! And Kale (another Brassica, and the healthiest vegetable)! And I’m not turning up my nose at Gruyere either.
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