Cauliflower

For those of us who rank the joy of cooking right up there with shopping at Trader Joe's and traveling, Susan Spano's June 13 column ("From Proust's Madeleine to Trader Joe's Cereal: Feeding the Hunger of Memory," Her World) hit a delicious (pun intended) note. I treasure the recipe for pasta with cauliflower sauce from our Roman friend Linda, who gave a sumptuous dinner party for my husband and me. And there is the goulash recipe Adam shared with me in Budapest, where I lunched in a cafe once owned by my grandmother.

Mark Twain called cauliflower "cabbage with a college education." Cauliflower is delicious raw. Crunchy, with a mild, earthy taste, it is good chopped and added to mixed green salads or separated into chunky florets and served as a snack dipped in coarse salt or honey-mustard dressing. Cooked cauliflower, on the other hand, has an almost buttery texture. I like it best separated into clusters of florets and steamed. Once steamed, it can be used in a variety of ways.

"Cabbage flower," the literal translation of the word cauliflower , aptly describes this crucifer family member that produces tightly packed florets. Most of the cauliflower raised in this country is creamy white, but purple and green varieties are gaining in popularity. If pale ivory florets, or curd, are desired, the plant's leaves must be tied over the growing head to block out the sunlight.

I've seen siblings who looked so much alike it was difficult to tell them apart. What name, please, for the one with the rosy cheeks? And you, with the teeny curls? Who's the tyke in a peaky gold cap? I know another family like that. The venerable cabbages. Some of the kids love to dress up. Get them in violet and burgundy, chartreuse and lime green, and no one knows whether they're broccoli or cauliflower. Even the people who raise them squabble over their names.

At first glance, it may seem to you that Mother Nature has gone awry. "Never in all those hours spent meandering up one produce aisle and down another," you say to yourself, "do I remember seeing a green cauliflower." Brain-shaped and with a texture indistinguishable from the garden-variety white cauliflower, this curious version is showing up in markets throughout the county. How do you explain its chartreuse hue? Genetics--the result of marrying broccoli and cauliflower genes.

Maria (the Tigress) Bernardi sits at the club meeting wearing Mike Mazurki's ear around her neck. It's a solid silver mold of his left ear, which also serves as the club's official symbol--its registered trademark. This is Wednesday lunchtime, the regular weekly meeting of the Cauliflower Alley Club at the coffee shop of the Dunes Motel on Sunset Boulevard. The deep red Leatherette banquettes are filling up. It's a colorful bunch. Mostly older. Mostly men.

A crunchy staple for salads and dips, this unlikely cousin of cabbage and Brussels sprouts is also steamed and enjoyed as an accompanying side dish. Primarily harvested in Ventura County during the cooler winter months, organically grown cauliflower is available now at the Organic Vitality roadside stand in Ventura.

It looks like cauliflower dyed green. It has a pleasing taste, sweeter than cauliflower, milder than broccoli. "It's called Broccoflower. It's a cross between cauliflower and broccoli and is America's newest vegetable," Joseph Montecalvo explained. Montecalvo recently completed several weeks of nutritional tests on the plant. He heads up the food science and nutrition department of California Polytechnic State University here. "It has more Vitamin C than oranges," Montecalvo said.