Beets

“They put hair on your chest,” my hairy-chested father told my sister and I when we were tiny. We squealed and turned our noses up at his offering.

“They taste like candy,” he told my  red-headed niece waving a slice of beet at her.

“You like candy?’ she asked. Then added,  “I don’t like candy.”

All this unfolded in my mind several years ago as I watched happy shoppers leave the farmer’s market, their bags overflowing with beets with their greens attached. What do they know that I don’t, I wondered, and I walked boldly up to a vendor and bought my first bunch of beets, greens attached.

It has been many years since I discovered the earthy glory of the humble beet. I don’t eat them often but when I do, I really enjoy them. Those first beets were traditional red beets that I boiled, then peeled wearing rubber gloves. Today, I dropped at the grocery store and picked a nice bunch of golden beets, my new favorites.

They taste earthier than candy and have yet to put hair on my chest, but they bring back memories my dad and the way he teased us while eating beets.