Collards

Last spring in a spirit of jeu de la vie, I decided to help a woman I know plant a garden. We went to the local big box store and got 100 pounds of topsoil, several cartons of tomatoes and, on impulse, a sixpack of collards that cost ninety nine cents. It gave me a chance to talk about my Southern heritage and how my mother used to make collards. After an hour and a half and fifty mosquitoe bites, the job was done.

My friend admitted she had never tasted collards, her being of Yankee extraction, so this would be her chance to taste some good old collard greens.

Today she looks out at her garden. The tomatoes are puny and when a tomoato does sprout she has to rush off to capture it before the squirrels do. But there are rows upon rows of huge, bushy collards. She has tried the collards in salads, fried, steamed, and boiled. She has decided she doesn't care for collards.

Tomorrow she will wake up and turn to her garden. Those *^#%&* collards! And that darned Mr. Mustache. I should never let him plant those blasted things.

Here's a nice web site on collards.