Chard!!

A week ago, it was so cold out, even my eyebrows hurt. Now all of a sudden it feels more like March, the snow's melting (well, some of it anyway) and today at the market I found a most wonderful surprise: beautiful, fresh chard from a farm in St. Mathieu-de-Beloeil!

Chard is pretty rare here in January, unless it's trekked in by truck all the way from California and by the time it hits the supermarket shelves it's usually pretty limp and wimpy (and expensive). So imagine my joy at finding three (they only had three left) FRESH bunches of LOCAL chard, ON SALE!!!!

You can sometimes find chard during the winter at Panier Santé or Végétarien, but rarely at Metro. I put in a word with the manager: Please, please order more of these!!! The picture above doesn't do it justice. The leaves are huge, crisp and very green and they look like they were just plucked from the soil this morning. I grow lots of chard during the late summer/early fall but mine never looked this good. (Probably because I pick and eat it before it has a chance to get to this size.)

So if you are near a Metro this week, go check it out! The sale ends Sunday, Jan. 13. There are a kazillion ways to eat chard. Lately I've been adding it to bean and lentil soup. The name of the farm from which these beauties come, by the way, is "Marvini".