I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who could write clever taglines when signing their name.  Like on a birthday card, yearbook, or going-away poster secretly tacked up in a conference room for you to sign, before sending a co-worker on to bigger and better things.

Two phrases, written to me, stick out.  First is “Stay Gold,” which my middle-school soccer teammate penned on my stuffed cat, a collective birthday gift made from material meant to write on (not an actual cat).  Most people wrote things like, “have a good one” or “nice getting to know you this season.”  But not Cyd.  “Stay Gold” was a reference to the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” recited by teenage heartthrob C. Thomas Howell in the movie “The Outsiders.”  Ralph Macchio (you know, the Karate Kid guy) played Johnny, who, moments before his character’s tragic demise, remembered the poem C. Thomas had read to him and told him to “Stay Gold.”  Cyd was much cooler than I was.

The second phrase is “May your kohlrabi always be sweet,” written by Ivy Manning to me when signing a copy of her cookbook.  I was struck by it because I always think it’s a trick when people tell me a vegetable I haven’t tried is sweet, and because it was a cool vegetable tagline–and hey, I write about vegetables, maybe I need a cool vegetable tagline!

That was six months ago. I still don’t have a cool vegetable tagline, but at least I’ve finally tried kohlrabi, though I almost missed it at the Cresset Farm booth at the Fort Collins Winter Farmers’ Market.

Because I was used to seeing it like this.  With the stalks still attached, a sign of their freshness.

It comes in purple too.

Cresset Farms’ kohlrabi had been harvested and kept in cold storage.  I thought to myself, if they were once sweet, would they still be sweet?  Or do they lose sweetness over time in storage?  My gaze shifted and fell on the neighboring carrots, which were unusually large.  Do really big carrots still taste sweet?  And that was it.  I had to know.  The kohlrabi and worlds largest carrot came home with me.

The Cresset folks had “geek sheets” for their vegetables which read “kohlrabi follows its brassica relatives by holding lots of Vitamin A and C, and the minerals potassium and calcium….It’s delicious raw or cooked, sliced, grated or cubed.  Use it alone or in salads, slaws, soups, bake it sauté it, or steam it.”  There was no explanation for the unusually large carrot.

I turned to Ivy’s cookbook, and the recipe for Kohlrabi Salad with Pea Shoots, in honor of her tagline.  Carrots were also a main ingredient, and it became obvious to me that the kohlrabi and world’s largest carrot were meant to be together.  I didn’t have pea shoots, so I used radish sprouts instead.

The carrot was sweet.  The kohlrabi smelled like cabbage, and tasted like a cross between a turnip and a radish.  It was crispy and moist.  Tasty? Yes.  Was it sweet?  Not really.  But then, how sweet is a sweet kohlrabi?  I have nothing to go on.  On the scale of kohrabli sweetness, I had no idea where this one fell.  And I had a nice salad that I ate with lunch all week.  I have since read that the smaller kohlrabi’s tend to be the sweetest, and the purple variety more so than the green.  I’ll just have to wait until the new crop appears at the market and give it another try.  Maybe I’ll have come up with a cool vegetable tagline by then (I’m open to suggestions!)

Want more veggies?  Check out last week’s veggie story:  Considering Cabbage. New veggie stories every Thursday.

Did you see last week’s market photos?  Click here for Monday Dose of Market: Fort Collins Farmers’ Market. New photos every Monday.

New to The Weekly Veggie? Read how it all began with My Childhood Vegetable Nemesis.