Real Baby Vegetables with Good Butter

When Dara and I were in Paris a few years ago with our friend Gina,* we ate a dish we still talk about today: Side of Cooked Vegetables. Can you believe it?

Well, last night I recreated it, and I'll share it with you. The price is that first you must meander with me through my personal vegetable history. Patience, my pretties.

I hate to admit that Paris memory, because it's not like we were vegetable imbeciles. Sure, like many Americans of our generation, we grew up with mothers pleading for us to "just take three bites" of obligatory frozen ones -- like squeaky green beans, or a sad mix of peas, carrots and corn termed "confetti" in a feeble attempt to be fun. Though my grandparents were prolific vegetable gardeners, my mom and I secretly derided their bitter "hippy lettuces." Mom often opted for convenience and practicality instead -- so for us, salad meant nice clean iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers from the supermarket.

Then, America had a produce revolution! This was based partly on the re-discovery that fresh produce tastes better, which David Kamp charts wonderfully in his book, The United States of Arugula: The Sun-Dried, Cold-Pressed, Dark-Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution (Broadway Books, 2006). The ideas of hippy-era vegetable pioneers like Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen and Deborah Madison took on new life as chefs and consumers demanded a greater variety of high-quality ingredients.

It also helped that vegetables are healthy, and Americans love the opportunity to take the fun out of anything delicious by declaring it part of a diet. In 1991, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Produce for Better Health Foundation created the 5 A Day for Better Health Program, which highlighted the soon-to-be-launched Food Guide Pyramid's recommendation to eat at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables. I got a public relations job for the program in 1996, and we recruited Graham Kerr as our spokesperson.

Kerr is an evangelist, quite literally, for fruits and vegetables; after specializing in meat, cream and booze for many years as public TV's Galloping Gourmet, he and his wife experienced a series of health problems and revelations. So we worked with him to develop a series of brief radio and television segments giving Americans creative, healthy ideas for using fruits and vegetables. They ran on stations all over the country, usually as part of the news hour.

I learned a lot from Kerr about everyday produce preparations -- like how to use a chayote squash, why you would want to eat a turnip, and how to peel and cube a mango. We showcased nearly every fresh, frozen, canned and dried fruit and vegetable Americans would find at a standard supermarket. The only bad part was that the recipes we developed for the program were required to be low-fat or fat-free.

Fortunately Americans' acceptance of fat returned, and their interest in good produce continued to grow. At the turn of the century, chefs sought ever more exotic fruits and vegetables. I worked in the kitchen at Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, where diners expected to leave having tasted new ingredients so they could brag to their friends. Chef Trotter loved produce and cooked with an extraordinary variety from around the world. Specialty vendors, farmers and Fed-Ex deliveries would unveil things I'd never seen -- vegetables like white and black truffles, kohlrabi, lotus root and fiddlehead ferns, and fruits like Buddha's hand, pummelos, and fresh yuzu.

These days, we've learned that overnighting fresh ingredients from Italy and Japan can leave a big carbon footprint (oops), and so we all try to eat local. Having gained an appetite for variety and quality, we still demand it. Brooklyn hipsters "return to the land" to recreate heirloom varieties; college students intern on co-op farms; farmers markets spread like mint; Michael Pollan books sell by the bushel; and honestly, the technology for freezing many frozen vegetables has moved beyond the ice age. (Ha.) Schools are sprouting vegetable gardens and salad bars with the help of Michelle Obama's nutrition and physical activity coalition, "Let's Move." My mom and I now relish those "hippy lettuces" like frisee and watercress with sincere enthusiasm; I've even grown my own crops on a small urban deck, which my friend Dominy taught me is ridiculously cheap and easy.

In short, as a country we've gone from wanting our produce in a format that's convenient and clean, to wanting it as varied as it can be from around the world, to wanting it fresh, flavorful and local. In Paris in 2006, I think Dara, Gina and I were still in the second stage -- by definition, seeking the exotic -- and it was the element of that third stage that threw us.

There we were at Benoit, one of Alain Ducasse's casual bistros, and Dara's plate came with a side of spring garden vegetables. They arrived at the table nestled in a small, covered dish. He lifted the lid and out poured the aroma of my grandparents' garden when I was a small child discovering it for the first time. And of course, the warm, rich smell of French butter.

The vegetables were common -- carrots, spring onions and peas -- but they looked like jewels, shiny with butter and picked from the garden so small. Per our query, the waiter said they were simply steamed and then dressed with butter.

This weekend at the farmers market I found tiny, fresh carrots, fennel and zucchini. The size and aromas reminded me of that dinner, so I looked at the English translation of La Bonne Cuisine by de Madame E. Saint-Ange (Ten Speed Press, 2005) to make sure I honored them correctly. What Madame emphasized is the importance of drying the vegetables, so that you don't end up with vegetables that "exude greasy water onto guests' plates, and don't retain any seasoning, like something that has been washed." I must admit, that sounds familiar, so I took extra care, and also used the freshest butter.

REAL BABY VEGETABLES WITH GOOD BUTTER
Serves 4 but really 2

1 bunch small, thin, fresh carrots, no more than 5 inches long and 1/2 inch in diameter
1 bunch small, fresh baby fennel bulbs, about the same size
About 10 fresh baby zucchini, about the same length
2-3 tablespoons fresh unsalted butter**
Kosher salt
Fresh minced basil if desired

Trim the carrots and discard any green tops. Rub them briefly with kosher salt to smooth their skins, but don't peel them. Wash them and set them aside. Fill a medium pot with 1-2 inches of water; place a steamer insert in the and place it on the stove, covered, on medium-high heat. Make sure the water doesn't rise above the steamer insert, so it won't soak the vegetables and perturb Madame.

Trim the fennel bulbs so that you use only the pale green part at the base; if you like, mince just a bit of the frond, too, to reserve for garnish. Trim the zucchini and slice it lengthwise into halves, thirds or quarters, approximating the same size as the carrots.

Place the vegetables into the pot. Cover and steam. Shortly before the carrots are tender and you carefully drain the vegetables into a colander, place a medium skillet on high heat. After draining, place the vegetables in a single layer in the hot skillet. Grasp the handle with both hands, and shake the vegetables gently to release any more moisture they may be carrying. When they seem dry, pat them with small dots of butter and sprinkle them with salt as well as fennel frond garnish and/or fresh minced basil if desired. Using rubber-tipped tongs, gently toss and then serve.

*No, it wasn't a romantic threesome, OK? We were on our way to our friends' Anna and Jan's gorgeous, gorgeous wedding in Brussels.

**If you haven't thought about the taste of your butter in awhile, I recommend conducting a butter taste test so you can choose your household's brand preference. For this dish, you want to have the best possible butter, with no off taste. I used a local brand from my farmers market, but I also love the taste of local Tillamook butter and French Plugra.