Fennel !

I got to the market early last time while Shu Takikawa was still trimming fennel out in front of The Garden of ….. Here’s a secret – you can eat Shu’s fennel bulbs like apples, core and all. Fennel is beautifully crisp and refreshing all by itself, or sliced with olive oil and salt, or in salad with oranges and red onion, or roasted with onions and tomatoes over pasta. If you’d rather not wing it, here’s a link to Fennel and Celeriac Soup from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison and Edward Espe  Brown. It calls for fennel, celery root, and leeks, all of which are available now at the Wednesday Farmer’s Market in Solvang. You use the trimmings from the celery root, fennel bulbs, and leeks to make a nice stock first, but I’ve been known to throw all the prepped veggies in the pot with water and the rest of the ingredients, simmer it up, and call it done. It’s very nice without the cream, and olive oil works as well as butter.