January 2023
Discover more from Broccoli Rising, the Newsletter from Ellen Kanner
“Oh, now all the common things become uncommon and enchanted to me.”
- Charles Dickens
It’s the end of the year when I predictably become gushy and mushy and have to fight the urge to hug everyone. Most of the year, I keep my head down and my feet moving. Just doing my stuff, you know? But every now and again — like now — I can tap into a sense of wonder and joy that lifts the spirit. I hope you’ve been feeling it, too. It’s the happiest kind of seasonal affective disorder, and it’s known as daft days.
It’s been during these daft days my neighbor gifted me with the most outrageous holiday gift — passion fruit right off his vine. Not just one, but a whole dozen! Passion fruit is yellow and oval, like the golden eggs the goose laid. Slice one open, and safe within its tough, inedible skin is one spoonful of gelatinous flesh, and about a million seeds. The seeds are crunchy and edible, but a little odd. The best way to enjoy passion fruit is to set a strainer on top of a bowl, scoop out that one spoonful of passion fruit jelly, stir and press, so you strain out the seeds and the juice collects in the bowl.
A dozen passion fruit yielded about a cup of brilliant yellow juice — not a lot of volume, but a lot of intense flavor. Passion fruit manages to be tart and sweet at once, and perfumey, too. They’re the very taste of sunshine, all the more welcome this past week when the polar vortex reached down to Miami, and we had a gray, wet, wintery weather for the holiday. Just a teaspoon in a mug of hot tea makes the most healing kind of tonic.
The passion fruit came like a rain of good fortune. I was overjoyed, and my neighbor was glad to give them a good home. “They come all at once, you know?” he said. That’s seasonality. Seasonality is a lesson in being present and savoring the moment, knowing it will not last.
I met Carlos Carneiro, director of the wonderful film, A Wonderful Kingdom. Carneiro’s movie documents the traditional grape harvest in the Duoro, Portugal’s wine region. His stunning cinematography captures the Duoro’s brilliant sunlight, terraced hills and winding river, but also captures wine-making from harvest to crush as the people of the Duoro have done for generations, even centuries. We tend to romanticize wine — well, I do— but here there’s no glamour and very little machinery, just hard physical work and dedication. That in and of itself has its own romance.
I’m so grateful for passion fruit and wine and all the earth’s miracles, and while I’m being gushy and mushy, I’m grateful for you. You are the friends I’ve made through growing and cooking and writing and teaching. You are the friends I’ve made virtually, which I didn’t even think was possible. There is always a place for you in my heart and a seat at my table. As I write in Feeding the Hungry Ghost, “Every meal — any meal, no matter how humble — can offer the opportunity for deeper connection, for a communion. . . We create celebration when we gather. We create plenty by being our most authentic selves.”
Wishing you all good things for the new year. May it be daft in the best ways — delicious, joyful, and full of passion and enchantment.
January is Veganuary. Make 2023 your best year ever by taking the plantbased pledge.
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and — hello — me! Let me help you be your most healthy, happy, fulfilled, soulful, sensual and plantbased best.
January 1 New Year’s Day
Every so often, as a food writer, I’m asked who I’d invite to my fantasy dinner party. My answer? Everyone. I want everyone to come to dinner. The whole world. Because we all deserve a seat at the table. Feeding the world sustainably means a lot of rice and beans. So dish up the hopping john. It promises luck in the new year, plus it’s damn delicious, nourishing, affordable and all-around awesome.
January 17 Martin Luther King Day
Together we can make Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of equity, of justice, a reality.
January 26-29
Seed Food and Wine is back for its eighth awesome year. Different month, same great plantbased festival.
Out soon — the new issue of Edible South Florida, with my recipes using seasonal produce.
My free virtual cooking classes series hosted by Miami Dade Public Library kicks off February 9 with Roots! An Edible Exploration of the Vegetable Underground. Links and registration coming soon.