Warhorse With A Braided Mane

Now, don't get me wrong - I love broccoli. I happily eat broccoli all year 'round. My mother never had to scold me to "Eat your broccoli!" I was dismayed when the first President Bush proclaimed publicly his distaste for this reliable old warhorse of a vegetable. You can depend on broccoli. It's always available, even when the evanescent asparagus or fresh English peas are missing, the good old broccoli is always there. Right?

Who was it who said "Absence makes the heart grow fonder?" Whoever it was, s/he hit the nail on the head.

As reliable and delicious as broccoli is, I was getting a tad tired of it and the vernal vegetables are still a month away, even here in California. So, how to present it positively, one. more. time?

I had taken a spin through now-wonderful Civic Center farmer's market on my way to and from work on Wednesday. On the way in, I bought bright, sweet tangerines to share with my colleagues and students. On the way home, I stopped for a small stash of lemon quark from Spring Hill Cheese company and a big stick of their butter. In my desperation to dress up the broccoli, I thought of the lemon quark, so dug it out and plopped a small spoonful on each of our servings of bright green. The lemon was a natural with the broccoli and so, oddly, was the almost-sweet cheese; really pretty good and certainly a change of pace. It got a little melty after the picture was taken, and ran into the crannies between florets. We love lemon quark on crackers and with fruit, but this was a new and interesting combination that we can recommend next time you are faced with Old Reliable again.