When you participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project, you get lots of vegetables. Mucho mucho. Some with names you have never heard of, e.g., verdolaga. The CSA process demands creativity. My husband, for example, made a pesto from garlic scapes*, the stem-leafy part of garlic.

I had the following CSA loot to work with: cabbage, carrots, celery, scallions, red onion, wilted green leafy things,* and soon-to-wilt cilantro. I also had leftover salsa. A quick scan of the refrigerator shelves revealed a jar of artichoke bruschetta. I decided: why not combine the joys of salsa & slaw, and ooo-la-la it with artichoke dressing?

Traditionally, a slaw consists of lots of cabbage and some carrots. I used a peeler to peel the entire carrot into slivers. The cabbage I sliced super fine, perhaps a millimeter in depth, but the length was long, possibly six inches. I added the pre-made salsa (onions, peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and jalapeno -- also diced). On the theory that you can't have too much cilantro, I chopped up more. I used one teaspoon of the artichoke bruschetta along with a splash of olive oil to dress it all. And of course, I added more salt. I love salt as much as life itself.

I was tempted to add a sliced plum, but it's akin to coaching a monkey to ride a bicycle on a tightrope --- adding one more thing will send the whole thing crashing. And I have to eat my mistakes, unlike those celebrity chefs on TV.

I scooped up my slaw with Garden of Eatin Blue Chips, which I prefer because they contain 2 g fiber per serving. So I can justify chips and salsa as a nutritional supplement.

*Garlic Scapes

**The leafy things wilted because I didn't know what to do. I threw those into a vegetable broth project, together with onions, celery, and carrots.

OMG: Sheep's milk camembert

My mother's a big fan of sheep's milk cheese. She once transported a duffel bag full of cheese across thousands of miles by land and by air. I didn't know what she was up to until the day after we'd landed in New York. I opened our refrigerator and founds a shelf full of cheese with Portuguese labels or no label at all. I'm reminded of that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball attempts to smuggle an obscene amount of cheese from Italy by pretending a slab of cheese is a swaddled baby. [Season 5: Episode 26]

I'm embarking on a cheesescapade. I plan to taste each of the varieties of cheese listed by Fresh Direct, an online grocer. And, it's been marvelous. My latest discovery is the buttery heaven that is sheep's milk camembert. Here's the strange thing: I have recent memories of turning up my nose at camembert. It was tooo strong. And that smell. Something was rotting and why on earth would I want to put that rot in my mouth?

But now the white mold that forms the ripe rind of the cheese doesn't bother me. I use to cut it off as though it had cooties. Now it's part of the cheese's charm. Perhaps, I'm finally growing up. That is, before I had immature taste buds, and therefore I liked the bland. Now, I'm judging cheese on it's own terms. Yes, it's moldy milk. But there are ways to cultivate mold that bring out the greatest flavors.

"You can't get this cheese here," my mother explained when we questioned her about the alleged craziness of her heist. Pasteurization kills the flavors. The best cheeses are local, as is the cheese that caught my fancy. It's made by Old Chatham Sheepherding Company of Hudson Valley. Spread it in some toast. It's like butter. Literally.