Mon Petit Chou

photoshop magic courtesy of Philip Brooker

The weekend a friend stopped breastfeeding, she and her husband celebrated by taking a cruise. They relaxed, they laughed, and, because she could, they had a few drinks. All should have been well. But her breasts didn’t get the memo about the no breasteeding order and kept producing milk, as they will, thus becoming enormous and sore. This is known in the breastfeeding biz as engorgement.

The recommended cure is to breastfeed. However, my friend was, for the weekend, sans baby, sans breast pump. She is a tough girl. But the body has a humbling way of showing us who’s really in charge. Sometime around midnight, she stumbled down to the infirmary and said, hey, any chance you guys have a spare breast pump around?

No.

She became aware of their disapproving gazes right around the time she became aware of the daiquiri fumes coming off her in waves. She refrained from asking if there were any infants aboard who might be feeling like a snack. She did ask the clinic staff if they might have any suggestions for breast engorgement.

A nurse suggested she nip around to the kitchen to see if there were any cabbage leaves to be had.

To eat?

No, to wear. A cabbage bra, as it were.

This was a new one for my friend. And though she’s intrepid enough to stare down the cruise chef and ask he hand over his brassica, it just seemed too old-wives’-tale wacky, She said thanks very much, sorry to trouble you, have a nice evening. She soldiered on and perhaps had another daiquiri or three. Because really, how is slapping cole slaw on your breasts going to relieve pain and swelling?

We had a good laugh about it -- and a little wine. Then I Googled cabbage and breastfeeding and discovered it’s a remedy going back at least 200 years and probably further. Who knew? You, probably, but not my friend and not me.

Ever looking for ways to give vegetables good p.r., I found the idea of a cabbage remedy enchanting. The science behind it says cabbage contains sulpher and magnesium, both of which antiobiotic and antiinflammatory properties. Cabbage is also considered a potent inhibitor of breast cancer in women, helping the body metabolize estrogen.

But cabbage leaves and breasts do not go together the way figs leaves and genitalia seem to. And the idea of something vegetal there, well, how comforting could it be? Well, speaking as a curious person rather than a nursing mom in need, it’s rather nicer than you’d think. And if you’re engorged, I bet it’s terrific.

Engorgement isn’t the only reason to admire the cabbage. You can do more than wear it, you can eat it. And what else can offer you so much nutrition for so little money and so few calories? Sky-high in vitamins K and C, rich in fiber and folate, it also has calcium for sturdy bones, antioxidants to keep cancer far away, it even contains protein. It’s easy to grow, endures extreme temps and can go in recipes as simple as slaw and as decadently comforting as pizzocheri.

An Italian dish traditionally made with broad buckwheat noodles, you can use any kind of sturdy whole grain pasta. I made it with whole wheat farfalle and offer both vegan and traditional versions. Either way, it’s cheap and easy to make, rewarding to soul and stomach and maybe breasts.

Pizzocheri

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion

6 cloves garlic

1 handful fresh sage leaves

1 small head Savoy cabbage, trimmed and thinly sliced

1 medium potato, thinly sliced

8 ounces broad buckwheat or whole grain noodles

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

1 cup fontina or other mild semisoft cheese, grated (traditional option)

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast plus an additional drizzle of olive oil (vegan option)

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, reduce heat to low, cover and let onion carmalize and cook for 20 minutes. Raise heat back to medium, add garlic, sage and shredded cabbage. Cook, stirring for about 10 minutes, until cabbage turns pale and tender and garlic is soft and fragrant.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add sliced potato and pasta and cook 8 to 10 minutes or until both are just tender. Drain and rinse.

Toss cabbage with the potatoes and pasta. Add a generous amount of sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

If you’re vegan, stir in the nutritional yeast and perhaps another drizzle of olive oil.

Nonvegans can add shredded cheese at this point.

Pizzocheri can be enjoyed just fine out of the pot, but traditionally it’s poured into a lightly oiled casserole and baked for about 10 minutes, or until top is golden-brown and cheese has melted.

Serves 4.

When Irish Eyes are Crossed

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I made Irish soda bread. Sort of.

When I went from vegetarian from vegan some years back, what I missed and thought of wistfully were the big overstuffed omelets I used to make on Sundays and my Irish soda bread, which I made all the time. I'd adapted my recipe from Myrtle Allen, maven of County Cork's famed Ballymaloe House, who seemed both amused and exasperated by this untraditional American girl trying to translate an Irish tradition. I had to mess with the recipe quite a bit to get it to taste as earthy here as it is there, but when I had it, man, I had it. Oaty, grainy, it's honest and nourishing and was the one thing I knew I could do well. It was also full of yogurt and butter. So when I went vegan, I said good-bye.

Then recently it occured to me I could try baking a vegan version, because I have just made my peace with vegan margarine. I use it but rarely, and only in baking. Not all baked goods can be fudged by swapping butter for apple sauce and coconut oil. Coconut oil soda bread? Yetch. And yet here I am using almond milk and vegan marg, so perhaps in a few months, I’ll present you with a soda bread recipe by way of the tropics. My classic soda bread appears back in June of last year -- on Bloomsday, June 16 -- but here’s a lightly sweet one with fruit. I added chopped dried figs, yet another heterodox twist. If you want to stay more faithful to the true, use raisins.

If you think I'm heretical here, wait till you see what I do with greens and white beans, which skew not towards Italy but Morocco. Unconventional but majorly yummy. Coming up next -- unless I do the cabbage and boobs post first. So much to do.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, y’all.

Vegan Irish Soda Bread

1-1/4 cups spelt flour

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup wheat germ

4 tablespoons vegan margarine like Earth Balance, softened

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon cinnamon

6 dried figs, chopped (or 1/2 cup raisins)

3 tablespoons sugar

1-1/4 cup almond milk

Preheat oven to 425.

In a large bowl, combine spelt flour, oatmeal, wheat germ and baking soda. Work in vegan margarine until mixture forms crumbs. Mix in cinnamon and sugar and almond milk. When you have a nice, thick batter, stir in chopped figs or raisins.

Pour into a lightly oiled pie or loaf pan.

Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool before slicing, or bread may be crumbly. Even crumbly, it’s good.

Wringing Wet

Our new washing machine overloaded and dumped water all over the utility room floor. This necessitated a major bail and mop. Then our antique dishwasher decided to call it a day and did the same thing, so within a couple of days, there I was again, cursing and mopping up buckets of water.

I’d just stopped feeling like the sorcerer’s apprentice when my husband and I attended an outdoor party at which the heavens opened up. They opened wide, with torrential, driving rain that turned the place to mud and drenched everyone to the skin because the squall gusts caused the party tent to buckle and blow away.

Clearly, God/Life/the universe was throwing an awful lot of water at me. The question is, why?

A friend, altered by drink, theorized that while we think we’re big and important, we’re really just water bearers. We exist to do water’s bidding. We spend our days taking it in, moving it to other places, releasing it. Water, not man, is Earth’s real intelligent life source. It would explain a lot about our current political system.

My feeling, though, is that this water was a personal message. Prior to the deluge, I had not been feeling in the flow. In fact, I felt like a dried legume rattling around in a jar, not like an inspired let alone inspiring creator. I kept getting myself into a tight little knot, writing and rewriting the same paragraph without making it any better. I was not doing myself much good, either.

I do not know why these dry spells happen but I hate when they do. I feel so fallow and purposeless and not how I perceive myself at all. I beat myself up in frustration -- not that it helps.

I am not especially comfortable talking about faith, since I have so little of it, and yet I’m fascinated by those who believe. Faith is intrinic to who they are and trying to get them to parse or discuss it is like trying to get someone to imagine being without a limb -- academic and arcane.

It must be nice. I come at faith like the Little Match Girl, ever on the outside, nose pressed to the glass. Instead of faith, I have perseverence. It’s not nearly as fun. I’d rather have faith, but maybe doggedness is just as good. It’s all part of what Chang-rae Lee calls “that pumping, thriving nature of life,” which, like water, keeps seeping in.

While working on his powerful new novel The Surrendered, Lee said, “I felt completely lost. There were many points in which I felt overwhelmed and overmatched. I learned I have a reserve of faith i didn’t know I had. I’m not a religious person, a going-to-church- type person, but I must say I drew upon some kind of idea, a sense I can do this, if I keep trying and quell these thoughts of desperation, if I can keep going, maybe it’ll work out. I was surprised by how I endured those moments.”

It was all I could do to muzzle the desire to say, “Oh, honey, you, too?” But I was interviewing him, so instead we talked about literature. And silicon boobs, golf, food and wine. But that’s another story.

These past few days, I’ve felt like something has budged, shifted, given way. I’ve been singing as I set about my work, a sign the gloom is lifting. It is one of the great unsung pleasures -- the release when a headache or heartache vanish, when a fever or funk break. It is the rediscovery of the simplest sensory delights like the delicious feeling of sun on your skin or sipping silky broth or really seeing the person you live with. It is being here now, being grateful for where you are without overthinking or trying to hold it too tightly (this part’s the killer for me).

I am -- at the moment, anyway -- more focused, more engaged, more grateful, more tolerant. I’ve been feeling a generosity of spirit, not faith but -- oh, let’s say it -- love -- bubbling up in me like a spring.

It’s raining now. And I’m enjoying it. And accepting it. And opening myself up to it and all that. But I’ve mopped up enough, wasted enough water, paid off enough repairmen, no more appliances need malfunction. It’s okay, universe -- I get it already.

Acquacotta

It sounds fancy and Italian, it means a soup of vegetables cooked in water. Left to my own devices, I’d add white beans or quinoa or enhance it with wine or vegetable broth. I am, however, honoring it for what it is. Acquacotta is peasanty, unpretentious and comforting, greater than the sum of its parts. It’s sort of like stone soup without the rocks -- a nice illustration of faith and a cheap and green meal, too.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 habanero or 1 jalapeno, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

3 ribs celery, chopped

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

8 ounces green beans, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 bunch chard or other greens, chopped

1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes

5 cups water

1 bay leaf

1 big bunch of basil, chopped

1 small handful fresh thyme leaves

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

For serving:

6 slices whole-grain bread, toasted

extra olive oil for drizzling

Options for lacto-ovo-types:

poached eggs

grated Parmesan

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add minced garlic, chopped onions, carrots, celery and habanero or jalapeno. Saute stirring occaionally until vegetables soften and turn fragrant, about 5 minutes.

Add chopped greens, mushrooms, green beans and diced tomatoes. Continue cooking another 5 minutes.

Stir in water, bay, basil and thyme and cover pot. Reduce heat to medium-low and let the soup simmer for half an hour.

To serve: Place one slice of toasted bread at the bottom of each bowl. Ladle soup over toast, add an extra drizzle of olive oil for gilding and enjoy.

Egg and cheese eaters can add one poached egg per bowl and a generous grating of Parmesan.

Serves 6.

Mardi Gras Memory

One summer many years ago, my father had some work around New Orleans and not much money, so he brought my mother and me along and turned it into a holiday. We stayed in what must have been the French Quarter, in a smallish room with wood-slatted shuttered windows opening out onto a narrow balcony.

The street smelled of dust and August heat -- a heat that stunned, turning me alternately soporific and whiny. We walked to a bakery where my father took me and said I could have anything I wanted. Heat-wilted, all I wanted was a lemonade.

We went to Brennan’s -- my parents’ big splurge. My mother fell in love with oysters rockefeller. I fell asleep at the table. I was six and the concept of fine dining was lost on me. We came back to find a maid had come for turndown service, leaving chocolates on the pillows, which were squishily soft by the time I ate them.

The next day, my parents decided to ditch me. In what seemed the worst kind of betrayal, they casually announced they were going out that evening. They took off for a good time, leaving me in the care of a woman I’m sure had an enormous heart. She had an enormous everything, spilling out of the armchair, filling the room, sending me to retreat to my rollaway cot by the window. She had thick glasses with greasy fingerprint smudges on the lenses and a plastic Barbie-colored hearing aid. I’d never seen one before and it frightened me. The two of us smiled at each other or bared our teeth the way our sparring Paleolithic forebears were said to do, to show we were evenly matched and needn’t try to dominate each other. We attempted neither play nor conversation.

I went to sleep before my bedtime, wishing this woman away. By morning, my wish had come to pass -- she was gone and my parents were back from Bourbon Street. What’s there, I asked.

My mother, who’d patiently explained sex to me the year before, now smiled showing all her teeth, the way she did when she wanted to convince me of something, the same way the babysitter and I’d smiled at each other. Men like to watch naked ladies dance, she said. My mother had never lied before but I couldn’t see the truth or wisdom in this. Until later that night.

We walked by a bar and honest to God, there was music blaring and up on a stage, a hoochie mama wearing an inch or two of something green and sparkly, danced, pranced, strutted. Her boobs bounced.

I don’t think my parents rushed me past the door -- they were progressive and cool and all that. But I was only six. I was too embarrassed to stare -- blushingly embarrassed for the girl, mortified for myself. New Orleans seemed a place of betrayal and depravity and I was finished with it.

Fast-forward a few decades and my husband, a Tulane alum, took me back to New Orleans for homecoming. It was May, it was muddy -- the city a sea of mud. I promptly ruined a new pair of shoes I’d gotten just to beguile my husband’s fraternity brothers whom I’d never met and withstand the scrutiny of their wives.

The shoes didn’t matter. My husband’s old college friends took me in, as did their wives, as New Orleans naturally does. They would have done regardless of footwear. They could have thrown me a parade and I wouldn’t have felt more welcome than I did by this. Yes, New Orleans is all about laissez les bon temps rouller, letting the good times roll, but it’s also about laissez faire, letting things be. New Orleans happily take you as you are, however that is (see April 27 ’09 post).

The things most people love about the city -- the bars, beignets, Bourbon Street -- they’re all there, but it is to me other delights -- the lacy wrought iron balconies on the Victorian homes and the strangers who toast me from them, the mule-drawn caleches. Mules endure New Orleans' heat and humidity better than horses and don’t object to me petting and cooing over them, either.

I am amazed by the Jazz and Heritage Festival, accommodating 40,000 people with five stages spread out on a race track. Somehow, there is room for everyone, the sound from the Elvis Costello stage doesn’t carry over into the Gospel Tent, and for every band you’ve come to hear, there’s another one you stumble upon and fall in love with. You can't get fast food burgers in the food court, but there's oyster po' boys, crowder peas and okra and dirty rice, with bottles of Tabasco at every kiosk.

We go back at least once a year now and I ruin a pair of heels every time. Sometimes the mud does it, sometimes it’s from walking the French Quarter’s cobblestone streets. The sensible thing would be to wear sensible shoes, but New Orleans is tolerant of your pleasures. If you want to wreck your shoes, go ahead. It indulges everything, including your own brand of madness.

As a child, I was a harsh judge of New Orleans. New Orleans never judged me. I, so intolerant of my own weird quirks, am utterly disarmed by this place that says, hey, you’re fine, we love you like you are. This wisdom comes from age and is not a lesson I could fathom as a little girl.

New Orleans has had to learn its own hard lesson. After the wreckage by Hurricane Katrina, it set about doing what it did not want to do -- resurrecting itself, but settling into the task with a grim determination. It is still recovering, but Mardi Gras beads keep the city shiny. So does hope. The Saints' Superbowl victory wasn’t just about football, it was about the joy of winning by being who you are. Happy Mardi Gras.

Down and Dirty Rice

Traditionally what makes dirty rice dirty is the addition of fowl gizzards. Um, no thanks. Chopped eggplant, a Louisiana crop, takes the place of organ meat in this super-satisfying veggie version Not spicy in itself, but you can make it that way. That’s what Tabasco is for.

1-1/2 cup rice (white or brown)

5 cups water or vegetable broth, divided use

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon olive oil

6 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 medium eggplant, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 tomato, chopped (or 1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes)

2 teaspoons paprika

1 handful fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped

optional -- 1 cup edamame

Pour 3 cups of water or broth into a large pot. Place over high heat and bring liquid to boil. Add rice and bay leaf and give a quick stir. Cover and reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes (brown rice may need an additional 10 minutes) or until rice is tender and all liquid is absorbed. Remove bay leaf and set aside.

May be done a day or two ahead and stored well-covered in refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before proceeding.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped garlic, onion and eggplant. Saute, stirring for 5 minutes, or until vegetables soften. Add chopped celery, green pepper, tomato, paprika and thyme. Continue cooking another 5 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in rice and remaining 2 cups of water or broth.

Reduce heat to medium and cook another 10 minutes until mixture is moist but all liquid is absorbed.

Stir in salt, pepper, lemon juice and chopped parsley, and for a pop of protein and bright green color, fold in optional edamame.

Serves 6 to 8. Keeps several days in the fridge, flavor improves over time.

Soupe Joumou: Sunshine in the Midst of Darkness

art courtesy of Philip Brooker

When a man pours you his soup, he pours you his soul, even when it’s soup cooked up on a hot plate. Maybe especially then. My friend Marcel celebrated New Year’s Day by making soupe joumou, the beloved soup with which Haitians start the new year. For Marcel, it was not enough to make soup -- he had to feed everyone he knew.

When I arrived, his tiny apartment was flooded with afternoon light and was so jammed, I couldn’t see the host for all the guests clustered around, cradling soup bowls, talking, eating, laughing.

Finally, I found Marcel his makeshift kitchen, holding court and presiding over the soup pot.

I gave him a kiss and picked up a bowl.

“It has meat,” he warned, remembering I’m a meat-free kind of girl.

“I’ll eat around it.”

We looked at each other. He beamed and ladled it up from a battered aluminum pot, rich and golden, like liquid sunshine.

Soupe joumou is the triumph of spirit over tyranny, heart over privation and a damn fine way to warm body and soul. This is a soup tapping into the collective unconscious of a people, evoking stronger feelings than Proust’s madeleine. I wasn’t going to let some bits of beef get in the way of that.

We all love to ring in the new year with its promise of new beginnings, but in Haiti, it’s especially cause for joy. New Year’s Day is Independence Day, the celebration of that New Year’s Day in 1804, when Haitians ended over a century of bloody rule by the French and were no longer colonial slaves but a free people in their own homeland.

Haitians celebrated by eating what had been forbidden them -- meat, cabbage and squash, the latter two grown on their own island. Haitian slaves had cooked these foods for their French masters, while they themselves had survived solely on rations of salt cod and lemonade.

Like hopping john, the new year’s dish invented by slaves in the south, soupe joumou is a dish that sustains and is sustainable. It’s made from what is local and available. The Haitians adapted the soup from their French masters, heating it up with habaneros and ginger and making their own. Like hopping john, some eat it on New Year’s Day for good luck. Others, like Marcel, eat and serve it knowing -- and honoring -- its history. And as with all things Haitian, there is some myth. The soup is said to honor Papa Loko, the Vodou god of the ancient African spirit. Yellow is the color that honors him. In any case, soupe joumou is belly-filling and soul-lifting all at once.

Since Haiti’s earthquake, Marcel, our gracious host of just a few weeks ago, looks crumpled, hollowed out. Most of us in Miami do. Haiti is but 700 miles away. Or it is literally next door. Haitians make up a rich part of our community and though we may not personally have lost family, as Marcel has, we all have Haitian friends, Haitian ties. People burst into tears on the street. Coworkers who once barely got past, ”Hi, how’s it going?” now embrace. There has been an outpouring of relief effort here, along with an outpouring of grief. Those efforts will be all the more important in the coming weeks and months, when the rest of the world might be inclined to forget or suffer compassion fatigue. As if caring could ever tire you.

Soupe joumou epitomizes for me Marcel and all the people of Haiti, who take what little they have, make it delicious and offer it to you with all their heart. It’s time for us, who have so much, to do the same.

At this time of crisis, as President Obama said, "We are reminded of our common humanity." Please donate to Partners in Health (www.pih.org),

the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders or whatever relief

organization moves you.

Vegan Soupe Joumou

I have taken the meat out of Marcel’s soupe joumou but not, I hope, the heart. Great by itself or ladled over cooked brown rice.

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

1/4 cup garlic, chopped (yeah, a 1/4 cup. Got a problem?)

1/4 cup ginger, chopped

1 jalapeno (or 1/4 habanero),chopped

1 large winter squash, diced

2 carrots, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1-1/2 teaspoons allspice

4 cups vegetable broth

1 bunch collards or callalloo, chopped into bite-sized bits, or about 3 cups shredded cabbage

juice of 1 lime

1 bay leaf

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, garlic and ginger and jalapeno. Saute, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften, about 8 minutes.

Add allspice, chopped squash and chopped carrots. Add greens a handful at a time. Stir until greens just wilt, about 3 minutes.

Add broth and bring heat to high. When broth comes to a boil, add thyme leaves and bay leaf.

Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for half an hour, or until vegetables are tender.

Squeeze in lime juice and season with sea salt and pepper.

Serves 4.

Here's Looking At You, Kid

Call me a bit of a rebel, I’m not a big on holiday traditions. For obvious reasons, I’m fine with a turkeyless Thanksgiving. I’m likewise fine with a treeless Christmas, a menorahless Chanukah. I do like New Year’s though, with champagne on New Year’s Eve and hopping john New Year’s Day. There is nothing glamorous about a plate of hopping john -- it's rice, black-eyed peas and collards. It’s cheapish to make and plainish to eat, but I love it for being rich in fiber, folklore and mystique. What other dish promises good luck, fortune and romance?

Some say black-eyed peas look like coins and collards or other greens represent paper money, therefore you’ll make as much money as the hopping john you eat.

Black-eyed peas also fit an old superstition that if a dark-eyed man is your first visitor on New Year’s Day, love and good luck will be yours.

Who knows where such stories started? One version has hopping john originating with the slaves who brought black-eyed peas and rice from west Africa. Some say the dish got its name from a child dancing around the stove, eager for supper. What started as a slave dish, livened with a lttle pepper and pork made its way into plantation kitchens.

It could be hopping john got its start even earlier, from our Celtic forebears who lighted fires on New Year’s Eve and danced around them all night. The Anglo-Saxon word hoppan means religious dance.

In either case, dancing seems as much a part of hopping john as black-eyed peas. I'm a great believer in dancing and a big fan of good luck, great fortune and hot romance. Do I believe a plate of rice and beans will make that happen? Not so much, but just enough -- that's why I’ll start the year the way I have for the past decade, with a pot of hopping john ready for New Year’s Day. Call it the victory of hop over experience (sorry).

Hopping John

Traditionally, hopping john is made with everything going into one pot. Traditionally, it is also made with pork. I -- surprise -- have broken with tradition and make this in two pots and sans pig.

Make it New Year’s Eve or even the day before. Flavor improves over time and hopping john reheats like a dream. You’ll have a nourishing, cheap meal ready to go on a day when some of us are too tired and bleary-eyed to cook. And there’s a bonus -- the sturdy rice and beans dish sops up any hangover.

Happy New Year.

1 cup black eyed peas

3 cups of water

6 cloves garlic

1 dried hot pepper

1 bay leaf

2 cups vegetable broth

1 cup brown rice

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

3 ribs celery, chopped

1 big bunch collard greens, sliced into thin ribbons

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring 3 cups of water to boil over high heat. Add black-eyed peas, 2 cloves of garlic (whole), pepper and bay leaf. Skim off any beans that float. They’re duds.

Reduce heat to low. Simmer beans uncovered for an hour and a half until beans are tender, not mushy.

Add brown rice and the vegetable broth. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Don’t lift that lid. Turn off the heat, leave pot on the burner and let hopping john sit.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, jalapeno, celery and the remaining 4 garlic cloves, chopped. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables soften.

Reduce heat to medium. Add greens by the handful, and cook until wilted, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Fluff rice and beans, fold in collard mixture. Squeeze in lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Splash with hot sauce.

Serves 6.