I hate beets

I have always hated the fresh-from-the-grave taste of beets, and virtually the only flaw possessed by my darling wife is a fanatical devotion to the self-same vegetable.

You can see where this is leading.

Ever since we've been together my wife has insisted that beets are, in fact, food. Despite my best efforts, she has continued to eat them -- sometimes two or three times a week. Aside from the farty-weasel taste of kohlrabi, beets are the only vegetable I refuse to eat.

A couple weeks back we made our weekly trek to the farmer's market to stock up on local provisions for the week. King Arthur (or King Edward... I can't ever remember, and don't really care) corn was available and so we bought a half-doz. On the way back to the bus we stopped at London Drugs to pick up something and the cashier noticed the the ears sticking out of one of our fuck-you-we're-environmental reusable shopping bags. She commented, we chatted, and I mentioned that I really like throwing ears on the BBQ.

"Oh," she said. "Have you ever had barbecued beets?"

Umm, no, of course I hadn't, but I swear my wife's little ears perked up at the combination of her two favorite words: beets and barbecue.

{She comments that, in fact, barbecue isn't one of her favorite words. As above, don't care.}

"Oooh, let's try that," says she."Oooh, let's not," says he.

So being the dominant one in the relationship, we promptly go home. And I heat up the grill for her barbecued beets.

Which -- goddammit -- turn out to be incredible.


Like, candy from the garden incredible.

So I made 'em again. And again.

Easy peasy, too, and you're really going to like them with yellow chiogga beets.

I cut them in half, toss them in a drop of olive oil, and throw them cut side down on the grill. When they're sufficiently marked, flip 'em onto their skin sides and finish 'em off on low/medium. Once you can pierce them with a fork they're done, and then all you do is sprinkle a little sea salt avec fines herbes after dousing them in more olive or or softened Earth Balance.

You infidels may use butter instead of EB. If you're extremely odd, or was born into an incestuous farm family, you may eat the skins. I am not, was not, and so don't.

I still hate kohlrabi, though.