Wherever you live, if you're mired down in winter you've probably grown sick of root vegetables and chicories and begun eyeing a bunch of foreign-grown produce, am I right? Stray not from the way of locavore righteousness! Instead, follow me down the garden path to these wonderfully-comforting-yet-healthy-&-nutritious creamed winter greens. I've discovered that you can make a very respectable béchamel sauce with buttermilk (the real, filler-free stuff) and it is the perfect foil for toothsome leaves, like mustard greens and kale. In a strange twist, I found myself craving this intensely green dish for breakfast. I like to start the day blowing on a spoonful of something hot, and when it's not oatmeal, a baked sweet potato or a bowl of miso soup, this does very nicely. It's also great for lunch or dinner, obviously, can be made ahead and even freezes well. Unlike me. Enough with the sub-zero temps.

(By the way, the reason I am not yet posting more on Oaxaca is that I am pitching a number of stories to a certain magazine and I am waiting to hear back on what, if anything, they would like to publish.)
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With the recent conclusion of his popular cooking column, The Minimalist, Mark Bittman has announced he will now write a regular blog for the Times' online commentary, The Opinionator; his first post is here. In a nutshell, these are the issues he will be dealing with: "If you cook, you think about what goes into your mouth; you shop more carefully; you begin to think about where the food you’re shopping for came from, and how it was produced; you begin to think about what you’re throwing out, and how you might use it instead of waste it; and so on." If you read this blog, you're probably interested in all this, so you will want to keep up on what Bittman has to say. Unfamiliar with his story? Check out his latest book, Food Matters, where he tells of his transition to VB46 (vegan before 6pm), which helped him lose 35 pounds, lower his cholesterol and blood sugar, cure his sleep apnea and painful knees, and gain a new consciousness of the politics of food. He's a big proponent of shifting the ratio of meat to vegetables on our plates, but he loves good food and does not have a Spartan approach to life. He believes in wine and dessert and the abolition of CAFOs.
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