Just One Simple Dish

Tonight's dinner was a simple affair. Some artisan sausages browned in a little olive oil made a light sandwich on flax seed bread. The starring role, however, as in many delicious dishes was a simple one.This walk-on was played by a bunch of young turnips with their fresh greens intact. My dad loved turnips and I recalled his favorite way of preparing them. I recreated, as well as I could, my mom's technique. I washed the prickly green leaves and scrubbed and peeled the turnips. Baby turnips, these were not-but they were young and sweet and about one to two inches in diameter. These were sliced into quarter inch thick coins and sauteed in canola oil with a gigantic clove of garlic that had been minced. My garlic this year ranged from tiny to huge bulbs. The small stuff had all grown seed heads, but I did not pop them this year and have found this makes for a very long-keeping garlic. Some of last season's garlic that ripened in 2008 is still very hard and oily and is of excellent flavor, although it is a test of patience to peel. Ah, it is so easy to digress when talking about garlic. The turnips were joined by the greens and tossed around a bit with a liberal splash of tamari. I covered the dish and let it steam a little and the pot liquor from the garlic-infused greens and turnips was savory from the tamari and had a natural sweetness from the turnips themselves.