A Confession About Beets.

My grandma Virginia is from the plains of eastern Colorado. Her high school in Brush has one of the most unique mascots that I know of - the Beetdiggers. My mom and grandma love beets. Each year the bright purple vegetable appears and is prepared and pickled, and I always pass. The smell is so strong, and I'm suspicious that anything is that color and not a fruit.

One summer Lauren, Sasha and I were sitting in the kitchen on the farm eating dinner. For some reason, we were eating in there alone. We must have still been little girls still. Each of us was given one large pickled purple beet. I'm sure I complained, positive Lauren made a face, and pretty positive Sasha joined in. We were a threesome united against beets.

And then the adults went into the other room to eat. Left to our own devices, we pushed the beets around our plates until it looked like we had cut it up and eaten them. Then we each took our beet and wrapped it in a paper towel. It bled through! Each of us used three or four more paper towels to wrap up the beet before burying it in the trash can. No one guessed that we had thrown them away. Our secret was safe...until now.

I feel like it's only fair that my family know what we did with the beets.

It makes me feel better about telling you this next fact. Yesterday at Café Atlántico I ordered the beet salad. And I liked it. Pretty, crisp and balanced with tender and bitter flavors.

It was another stop during Restaurant Week (month) for me, and it was delicious. I had a great quesadilla with roasted vegetables and homemade mango sorbet.

And beets.