Hearts of Celery

I've mentioned that I'm a touch compulsive about this and that. That shows up in putting groceries away in a number of ways, one of which is to clean and cut up vegetables before I put them in the crisper. When Richard and Julie were little, they knew that there would always be a container of cut up snacks in the crisper: celery, carrots, radishes, green onions, cauliflower, turnips, kohlrabi, cabbage. Whatever their little hearts might desire. The only thing I never cut up ahead of time was bell peppers, since they get slimy on the cut surface. At the same time, I would save parts of the vegies that would go in soup, such as celery leaves and scallion greens, in the freezer and clean the greens that came attached to kohlrabi for steaming. And, since I was being so virtuous and preparing the vegetables, I got to eat the celery heart*, my very favorite part of the entire lot, while I was cleaning and cutting.

When Julie was in high school, she took over putting the groceries away, which included the vegetable prep. I would go into the crisper to get a snack, and there wouldn't be any celery heart, but of course I accepted that now that Julie was doing the work, Julie got the reward.

I think Julie had been cleaning the celery on a weekly basis for well over a year before I walked into the kitchen and saw her run the celery heart down the disposal. That's when I discovered that Julie doesn't like celery and since she had never seen those luscious, pale green little stalks or the small section of the heart in the drawer, she thought that they weren't edible. For well over a year, the best part of the celery had been going down the disposal. It broke my heart. It still does.

* Just looking at the picture of those tender stalks makes my mouth water. Luckily I'm going to shopping right after breakfast, and I can get some.
Image: Cookthink.com