Swiss Chard Courtship

Swiss chard was an unexpected pleasure, one that My Beloved introduced me to during our courtship. I think he wanted to impress me with his culinary skills. I learned later that they are limited, but he certainly succeeded with his Swiss chard method.

I had long heard of the glories of Swiss chard from our dear family friend, Bobbie, who always tried to grow Swiss chard in her spacious Michigan back yard, but the woodchucks liked it even more than she did so we never got any. We did get a big kick out of her grumblings and swearings to wreak revenge on the woodchucks. Because she was the most tender-hearted animal lover ever to grace the earth, her threats of shootings and miscellaneous mayhem couldn't have been more laughable. Thanks to the woodchucks, whom we kids secretly thanked, we were always spared having even to taste Swiss chard.

So, when MB offered to make dinner one night and chose a colorful bunch of chard and a big bulb of garlic as we cruised through the market, I was somewhat, shall I say, skeptical about the outcome of dinner.

Here's what he did: He put a about a tablespoon of butter in a wide frying pan over medium heat and added three or four crushed cloves of garlic. After sauteing the garlic, he added washed, stemmed and cut up strips of the whole bunch of Swiss chard (about 10-12 leaves) to the pan with just the water clinging to the leaves after washing. Within minutes of tossing it lightly around in the pan, all that bulk cooked down to just 3-4 servings of the most buttery, garlicky delicious dark green puddle ever to surprise my palate. Turns out that Swiss chard is like a very mild spinach and it acts much the same in the pan, too, shrinking dramatically with the addition of heat.

I love this stuff best under a serving of roast chicken or next to a nice piece of steak but it's delicious all by itself, as well. It was unexpectedly appealing - kinda like MB's culinary skills.