scary, fun, beautiful produce

It's another gray, and probably the most freezing cold day in Berlin yet. Good for baking a nice warm meal. At the market this morning I got some more of the beautiful violet-orange carrots, to make for lunch with baked chicken with a paprika garlic marinade.

I also had the Schwarzwurzel to try. The farmer I bought it from warned me that they can be difficult to work with, that they get all sticky. So I looked it up online and almost everyone said to make sure to wear gloves when peeling--for some reason the exposed root turns glue-like with skin contact. Strange! And so freaky weird looking!  And it has to be put in an acid right away, or it discolors (I used a milk/lemon mixture). It's often compared to Spargel, or white asparagus, and is used the same way in recipes (the Germans most often pair asparagus with hollandaise sauce or butter). I just made a lemony sauce to go with it. Nothing amazing. Not like the Topinambur (sunchoke), which I will make again for sure. Maybe I didn't cook it well, but we wanted to taste the root, and know what it was like. Maybe I should give it one more try...

Every time I get chicken I think of my dad...who finds it crazy how many people buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts. He's has told me multiple times that it's cheaper to buy a whole chicken and cut the breasts off. :) And finally, after years of being afraid of breaking down chickens, I finally do it. And make stock with the carcass. It makes me feel good to use all the parts, too, and once you've done it a time or two it's not so scary to attack a whole chicken.