Are you longing for the juicy fruits of summer... watermelon, peaches, and pick-your-own berry patches? Are you dreaming of plucking sugar snap peas and string beans from your garden plot? Me, too. But, every season holds what our bodies need at the perfect time. During the summer months, in-season fruits have an abundance of water to hydrate and cool us in the heat. In the winter, in-season produce is heavier... denser to warm us. A winter's diet certainly doesn't need to be boring.
These Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple, or topinambour)... I have been crunching them raw like an apple. Unpeeled so as not to miss any of the nutrients that the skin holds. A crisp sweet treat that is a species of sunflower. Above the ground, a tall plant with a small sunflower blossom. Underneath the soil grows clusters of knobby tubers that become sweeter after a frost.