Self-worth (Butter-braised beets)

Turning over a new approach

The beet was cool to the touch, even after sitting on my sunny countertop for hours. I let her sit there and waited for her to tell me how she wanted to be. Every time I’d cooked beets before, I made them the same way: trimmed and wrapped in foil, roasted until cooked through, peels slipped off after cooling, and sliced into wedges. Served simply with flaky salt and pepper and maybe vinegar, they are a whole dish next to their greens. 

This beet was different. When I bought her from Harlem Valley Homestead at the Hastings Farmers’ Market, the farmer Sarah Lucas exclaimed to her colleague with glee. “See! I told you someone would buy the ugly beet!” Labeled “ginormous,” the beet was bigger than my hand, its greens long and broad with stalks like rhubarb. My husband named it the Giga Beet.

The Giga Beet did not want to be wrapped in foil. She wanted the shape of her to be seen. I turned her on her side and sliced her into rounds, each thick disc patterned in magenta rings, bending with the irregular shape of her body. I melted an entire stick of butter and lay each slice in the bubbling fat. While they were cooking, I made a gremolata out of rosemary, garlic, lemon zest, and salt, feeling like the power of those flavors could stand up to Giga Beet’s sturdy slices.

When the butter smelled brown, I flipped them, the scent growing more complex as the beet sugars caramelized. When a knife pierced through their centers easily, I turned off the heat and added a toss of gremolata, frying garlic and rosemary now sizzling in the air. Sliding a few slices onto a plate for a pre-dinner snack, I felt delighted. I had tried something totally new, honoring the essence of this rangy beautiful creature. And it was delicious, firm and perfectly cooked through. The butter baste transformed the beet from something ascetic into something luxe.

I’ve been cooking beets since the end of summer, feeling connected to their vivid color and protective of their challenging nature – my son won’t eat them so I’m making them for myself. I know their worth and they’re keeping me company as I figure out mine.

Since quitting my job nearly three years ago, I have not had a paycheck. It’s been a process to realize that somehow I’ve conflated that specific, monetary compensation allotted by others with how I feel about myself. No matter how much I contribute to my family or my community, I can’t help feeling like I’m lacking something, that my worth is intrinsically tied to what I individually earn. Like cooking beets in foil and never imagining another approach, I’ve had a narrow way of seeing my value. When I peel back the foil and really look at what’s there – me existing in the world without structured paid employment – I can start to see the rings inside. Self-worth is more than a paycheck. It’s the whole shape of me, like Giga Beet.

I turn myself over, considering other ways to understand what this means. I don’t have a paycheck right now, but clearly I have worth as a human being. Is it what I do, how I serve others? How I show up for my husband and my son on their birthdays, bringing friends together to celebrate them. How I organize volunteers for our local food pantry. Maybe. But I’m reminded of when I dislocated my shoulder bicycling years ago on Cañada Road. I couldn’t cook, couldn’t clean, couldn’t type. My son, about 7 at the time, noticed my despondency and reminded me, “Mama, you don’t need to be useful for Dada and me to love you.” He didn’t mention that I don’t need to be useful to love myself.

There’s something about self-worth that feels hard to extricate from my perception of how others value me. When I stop earning, and even stop doing, I see a deeper ring. In November, just before Thanksgiving, I went to Troncones, Mexico, on a yoga retreat with a group of 9 women. I did very little, but I could feel my presence had value, just being there as we all unfolded. We held space for each other, reflecting back the beauty we saw. Just existing has worth. To celebrate, not justify or excuse or ask permission for.

The beet is more, even, than how she tastes, or what satisfaction there is in cooking with her. It’s just her. She’s the symbol of my “Recipe as Feeling” logo, the vegetable I photograph most, her depth of color surprisingly hard to capture with an iPhone camera. It’s the whole of her: Who she is, how she is, how she gives. Her price tag at the market, some abstraction of the farmer’s costs and labor and what people will pay, doesn’t begin to capture it. 

I made this recipe again to explore its edges. Would smaller beets work? What about olive oil instead of butter for my dairy-free friends? The technique worked fine, though the largesse of butter infused into one ginormous beet won my heart.

As I slice myself in new ways, imagining new possibilities of being in this world, I return to Giga Beet. The whole of her, her true color hard to describe. Her presence in the ground, at the market, in my kitchen, on my plate, and the idea of her too – how she exists in all her forms. What is a being worth? What is she worth, ultimately, to her self? Hard to quantify. Not the answer, then, but the question, the seeing. Finding new angles and inspiration. A paycheck or a price tag is an external assignation of worth at a moment in time. The inner value unknowable. Maybe ok being unknown, and treasured all the same.

Recipe as Feeling: Self-worth (Butter-braised beets)

See your whole shape.

Listen to your heartbeat.

Try a new approach.

Taste what’s inside.

Actual recipe

Butter-braised beets (with dairy-free alternative)

Serves 4 as a side dish

INGREDIENTS:
1 ginormous beet, or a bunch of smaller beets, cut into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch rounds along the beets’ horizontal axis (so if the sprout and root are the north and south poles, you would cut along the equator and lines of latitude)
1 stick butter / dairy-free option: 1/4-1/2 cup olive oil (adjust quantity for size of pan and quantity of beets)
1 small bunch herbs (rosemary, mint, or parsley all work well), rinsed, dried, and finely minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon or orange (organic/unwaxed if possible)
Flaky salt and pepper
Optional: Beet greens, washed, dried, and chopped

Heat a large frying pan on medium-high heat (cast iron works really well for this recipe) and add butter or olive oil. When butter is melted and starting to brown (or when the olive oil shimmers), add the slices of beets, spacing out slices so they have room to brown and not steam (you may need to work with multiple batches if you have a lot of beets).

While the beets are cooking, mix the herbs, garlic, zest, and some salt together for the gremolata. When the bottoms of the beets are brown and starting to blister, flip them, adding salt and pepper to their cooked side. Adjust heat to keep from burning. When you can pierce the beets easily with a sharp knife, toss a handful of gremolata on top, let it sizzle for 30 seconds, and then turn off the heat. Remove beets to a plate or platter and add more gremolata on top and serve. If you have beet greens to work with, fry those in the same pan as the beets were in, adding more salt and pepper, and serve alongside the beets.