Over Thanksgiving I was at Rancho la Puerta, the most magical spa in Tecate, Mexico. I am not a spa person, but I love this place for its gardens, its kind staff, the chance to walk a lot, practice yoga, and for many other reasons. I always teach either writing or cooking classes when there, and for sure I visit the six acres of organic gardens. All the gardens –those that produce vegetables and those that cover the rolling hills with aromatic Mediterranean and native plants, are at the heart of the pleasure I find in being at the Ranch.

When I do a cooking class, I always partner with the head gardener, Salvador, to take students outside to visit the various plants they’ll be cooking. Salvador is so enthusiastic about all the plants he grows he infects others with his joy. He plucks plants out of the earth, strips away leaves, cuts off bites of what meets his hand— chile, radish, beet, escarole—with his garden knife, takes a bite then, exclaiming, “Is good!” The he offers bites to others. It’s  hard to refuse tasting even an onion at eight in the morning when confronted with Salvador’s excitement.

This past week I was especially struck by the foliage, the huge outer leaves of the cabbages with their raised veins, the thick, dark deeply lobed broccoli leaves, and those that crowned the kohlrabi, that I suggested to the students that we cook them and see what they taste like. I myself didn’t know. It’s not just that we don’t think to cook these leaves, it’s that most of us never even see them unless we have a garden, so to everyone, these enormous leaves were a new aspect of the edible garden. We cooked one kind of leaf in each of three classes, slicing them into thin ribbons, simmering them in salted water, then tossing them with olive oil and crushed garlic. Even though the leaves were leathery and dense, they all cooked surprisingly quickly, in five minutes or so,  into luminous shades of green, from light (the cabbage), to spinach colored (the kohlrabi), to as dark as possible (the broccoli). They were robust tasting, but not bitter or old or rank in any way. They tasted like the essence of green matter —chlorophyll and sunshine— and it felt like eating good medicine. Not a shred remained. They were so delicious that the classes practically wolfed them down. What a surprise, for usually these are the parts that are thrown away. 

If you have a garden with some winter broccoli growing under a tunnel of remay or plastic, don’t overlook the greens. I’ve got an eight-foot bed of red sprouting broccoli and I’m not sure it’s going to make those sprouts. But if it doesn’t (and even if it does) I’ve got my eye on those leaves. In fact, I might not even wait to find out what the rest of the plant is going to do. (Warning: the leaves are feeding the plant, so if you’re tempted, to sample and still want a crop, don’t take too many!)