JULY 1st: The Garlic Scape

IMG00379.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I am intrigued, always, by new food items. As I head home from work, I pass a farm stand, Holbrook Farm. It's a lovely farm and the owners are just as lovely. They introduced me to this interesting "vegetable." Apparently, garlic scapes are merely the tops of the garlic plant...the shoots that will one day flower. Apparently, it behooves the farmer to cut the scape so that flowering doesn't draw all the plant's energy away from the bulb...or something like that.

There are recipes and blogs citing the utilization of this beautiful green all over the internet, but mostly I just thought the scape was as pretty as a cut flower.