Big can be beautiful too

The year has begun well. Our little farm has produced vegetables that, like Jack’s beanstalk, growed and growed, till they were pulled out by an alarmed maali, who claims to have seen nothing like it in his life. The radish crop is humungous-sized, and the largest among them tipped over two feet in length, half that in circumference, and couldn’t be weighed on the kitchen scale that is used for more delicate measurements. Ten days after it was farmed, we’re still serving portions of it to guests with their drinks, and having it in salads for lunch and dinner — so please excuse our pungent breaths, ladies and gentlemen, but we’re talking record here.

The cabbage seems to have meta-sized too, as if it’s on steroids. Since each is the size of a football, every time we have cabbage — and we seem to have it a lot — there is much more of it to go around. Trouble is, a little cabbage is nice, a lot of it not so much. “But it’s homegrown,” says my wife, spooning extras into our plates. The dog, who eats everything you tip it under the table, seems not to like cabbage very much. The cleaning lady cannot understand why there’s cooked cabbage under the dining table every morning. 

Nature is a wonderful thing. None of us mind cauliflower so much because once it’s off the stalk, you’re done with it. Not so broccoli, which is hydra-headed, sprouting new heads as soon as the old are off. So, we’ve had an endless supply of it served up in myriad salads, because all those greens coming off the farm have to be consumed before they wilt too. My wife has endless ways of keeping us in broccoli — in soups, sandwiches, rice pulaos, rolls, with mayonnaise, mustard, honey dip, chilli relish, and, occasionally, just steamed and salted, which is the worst. “It has no taste,” she says, as if that’s a good thing. “Vodka has no taste either,” I tell her. Between broccoli and vodka, I’m rooting for the latter. 

Having got used to plenty, my wife is annoyed because the brinjals seem no larger than normal, and the tomatoes are smaller than the vegetable vendor’s. Because she is sensitive about such things, my wife has been buying tomatoes from the market and passing them off as those from the farm when sending off little bundles to “the girls”. The average age of the girls is — oh, never mind. The girls don’t make much of it. “The cook never mentioned you sent us mustard greens,” one says, because my wife likes fishing for compliments. “Potatoes, really,” exclaims another, “but, darling, you know I’m off carbs.” 

The maali takes care of the vegetables, but a “gardener” manages the flowers, and they’re an impoverished lot. The petunias have a pinched expression, the nasturtiums haven’t made it beyond the bud stage, and the chrysanthemums are more stalk than blossom. The dahlias look like they might not survive the harsh cold, but spring might yet revive them. They’re being fed a diet of compost that comes from the waste at home, mulched into the flower beds. Healthy it might be — and smelly too — but my bet is the flowers aren’t over fond of the broccoli either. Or the radish. And they’re letting us know.