I love BEETS?

Yes, I love beets.

It's a revelation that I've come to quite late in life. Aside from pickled red beet eggs--a midwest peculiarity if you've never had them--I've always associated beets with deprivation. When I was in middle school, my mother decided to try yet another diet. It's not that she has ever been particularly overweight, but as a buxom, curvy, and short woman in the era of Twiggy, she tried a number of different diets: grapefruit, cabbage soup, and the beet diet.

The beet diet required you to eat a cup of diced canned beets with every meal. And, no it isn't particularly effective. However, the memory of all of those tinnish, soggy beets has been so seared into my psyche that the mere mention of beets would trigger a pavlovian nausea in the very pit of my stomach--similar to drinking an entire pot of coffee without any food.

So, of course, my very first grab bag featured almost two pounds of golden beets. The horror. The whole reason I joined South Mountain was to prepare more foods in season and locally grown. Beets were definitely in season.

Exploring recipes on Epicurious and Cooks Illustrated baffled me because I couldn't believe people were waxing poetic over beet recipes that had 5 ingredients. They featured beets, they couldn't be good. Skeptical, I wrapped the beets in foil and roasted them in a 400^o oven for about an hour. I cooled, peeled, diced and added them to a salad containing feta and a red wine vinaigrette. They were simply delicious--I couldn't stop eating them. My five-year-old gobbled them up as a well. As good as that first foray into beetdom was, true nirvana was attained with the following Beet Carpaccio recipe that I slightly modified from Bon Appétit April 2003:

Beet Carpaccio

1 pound Golden Beets, roasted and sliced thinly

2 ounces Goat Cheese, crumbled

1 Shallot, minced

⅓ cup Seasoned Rice Vinegar

⅓ cup First Press Unfiltered Olive Oil

A pinch of Sugar

⅓ cup Mint, chopped

Salt and Pepper

Whisk together vinegar, olive oil, and shallot and let sit for 15 minutes. Whisk in mint and a pinch of sugar. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Arrange beets slightly overlapping in a shallow dish. Pour dressing over beets and crumble goat cheese on top.

You really must make this. It's a revelation, truly. And, it couldn't be more simple.

--Lisa