I discovered Japanese Turnips in the summer of 2001. Migliorelli’s, one of my favorite farmers at the greenmarket regularly brings in stacks and stacks of bunches of the little white orbs with their dark green leaves. One day at the World Trade Center Tuesday market, I picked up a bunch and asked the stand manager, Yoshi, how to fix them. “Oh, you can eat them raw,” he said, as he rubbed one with a piece of paper towel and handed it to me. “Try it.” It crunched as I bit into it, surprised by how sweet it tasted. “Just sauté them in some butter or oil if you’ve got to cook them,” he said. So that’s what I did. We’ve been enjoying the results ever since. <br /> <br />[Here’s some more to the WTC story: on 9/11/01, all the farm stands were set up along the edge of the drive that ran alongside Church Street. They were there when the planes slammed into the World Trade Center, and many, Yoshi among them, were injured by falling debris. Glad to say he recovered and came back to Migliorelli’s tent in Union Square. He’s now retired to upstate.]

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