Collards: A love story

“Hi Surfer John! I have a random food question. Especially since you are from the South ;). Do you have a “recipe” for collards that you like and can share?”

Heather-Marie insists that when she first reached out to John, she really was just asking for a collard greens recipe.

OK, well, that’s mostly true, she confesses now.  It was 84 percent innocent.

Another part of her, though, was kind of wondering if there might be something else there. 

We had known each other for almost a decade but only distantly through mutual friends.  We’d never hung out together; we had barely even spoken to each other. 

Heather-Marie is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmer.  She delivers seasonal vegetables for 17 weeks throughout the summer to local customers.  And each week she writes a newsletter for her members that talks about what is happening on the farm and includes recipes.  But she was continually stumped on collard recipes. She had a few. She knew you could replace them with kale. But still… So, she reached out to John, whom she knew was from the South and therefore, she assumed, knew some collard recipes.

And, he did. So, in that first interaction, we talked collards. First, John suggested a few of the classic Southern-style collard recipes, but, of course, most of those involve cooking up a broth made up mostly of pig parts. Nope, Heather-Marie said, I’m a vegetarian. No pig parts for me, please.

Then John offered up a few alternative dishes, including one of his favorites from Mark Bittman that uses tahini and garlic.

Sounds great, Heather-Marie said. I’m in.

But the conversation didn’t end there. The more we talked, the more we realized how many things we shared: a love of good food, farming, the natural world, birds, music, books… and, well, you get the point.

“I hear you are a good cook ;),” Heather-Marie wrote.

“You will have to find out for yourself sometime!” John replied.

“Alrighty. Deal. I’ll grow the veggies. You cook ‘em ;)” Heather-Marie said.

“Perfect,” John said.

Of course, there was a problem: John was in a different state at the time – staying with family for the summer in North Carolina. He wouldn’t be back up to Minnesota for a couple of months.

Heather-Marie, meanwhile, was in the middle of the farm season and living in her tinyhouse about an hour west of Duluth.

The meals would have to wait.

So, we waited. But in the meantime, we got to know each other. There were daily texts about food, birding, music, what was growing in the garden where he was and in the field at the farm where Heather-Marie was.  And well, we started to fall in love…although neither of us would openly admit it. We agreed we would be “chill” and maybe get together when John got back. But we were going to take it slow.

(We didn’t.)

Heather-Marie was wearing a yellow sundress and sitting on the front stoop of her tinyhouse when John finally pulled up one afternoon in late summer. We nervously sat on the steps and said hello in person for the first time. Then we walked out into the field to see what was for dinner.

It’s now spring and John has joined Heather-Marie on the farm where we are working on our first farm season together. We’re starting seedlings. We’re picking ramps. We’re scheming and planning and eating what grows wildly around the farm and what will soon be coming out of the field.

It’s a challenge to make elaborate meals while working for 12-plus hours on the farm. But as the growing season intensifies, we know we can build meals based on what is ready to harvest. Rather than saying “I want such and such for dinner,” we walk out to the field and make something out of, say radishes, lettuce mix and kale. For us, it’s the definition of eating seasonally.   

In fact, we recently planted collard seeds together and, if all goes well, will pick collard greens from our field together and make a meal from them.

We actually didn’t have collards for that first meal together — which is too bad, it would make for a better story.  But we have had collards many times since then. In fact, our tradition is to mark that first text exchange by making a meal featuring collard greens each month.

Here is one of our recent favorites.

Coconut rice wrapped in collards with carrot chutney and tahini dressing

Like many of our dinners, this recipe kind of happened in the moment as we brainstormed a way to make a meal out of what we had. The rice is adapted from one of our favorite cookbooks, “Deliciously Ella With Friends” by Ella Woodward. The carrots are adapted from a recipe in “Vegetarian for a New Generation,” by Liana Krissoff. The tahini dressing is a family favorite and something we put on almost anything.

Coconut rice

• 1 cup long grain brown rice
• Juice of one lime
• 1 can of coconut milk
• Water (about 1 and a half cups based on your rice cooker. If you don’t have a rice cooker, why don’t you? Get one.)
• Stems of collard greens, chopped finely
• Small to medium onion diced

Carrot chutney

• ½ pound carrots, grated
• 2 tbs turbinado sugar
• 1 tbs grated
• 1 navel orange, scrubbed and juiced with some of the zest set aside as well

Tahini dressing

• 2 tbs tahini
• ¼ extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbs white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• Grated ginger, optional

Collards

• 1 pound collards, washed, stems removed. Larger leaves are better.

Steps:

1. Prepare the collards leaves, setting aside the stems.
2. Chop collard stems and onion and saute in olive oil with a little salt and pepper.
3. Using a rice cooker, combine the ingredients for the rice and start it so it will be ready when everything is done.
4. Combine ingredients for carrot chutney in a small to medium saucepan and bring just to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes and let cool.
5. In a large, flat deep pot with a cover, heat salted water that is about a half-inch deep (you could use a broth for more flavor). Work in batches, adding four or so collard greens to the boiling water and covering the top. Cook until the desired tenderness. There is a lot of variation in collard green toughness so you’ll need to taste and test. Set aside. 
6. Once rice is done, use collard leaves as wrappers, placing a dollop of the rice mixture inside and rolling into a cigar shape.
7. Serve garnished with carrot chutney and dressing.