In Which I Am "Beet-en"

I love beets. I truly do. I make a mean beet salad that even beet-o-phobes will eat. I haven't had beets in a while, so when I saw this recipe on The New York Times site, I thought "Yum!"

I buy some beets. They seemed to be on special and were packaged a bit differently. Still, beets are cheap: one of Moscow's few bargains.


The interesting angle in this recipe is that the beets are peeled and diced before roasting. I peeled myself a beet. It looked wrong:


More alarming, it smelled wrong. It smelled . . . earthy and all. But with a familiar piquancy that is decidedly un-beet-like. I couldn't quite put my finger on it . . .


I call The Spouse.

"What's R-E-D-softsign-K-A?" I ask him. "Is it some kind of beet?"

"Um, nooooo," he says, not unkindly. "It's radish."


Radish?

Fuck.

I can't roast a radish.

"Do you think I can roast them?" I float the idea to The Spouse.

"No." He's pragmatic. "It's a radish."

Internet to the rescue.

I google "radish recipes" and come up with a few salad ideas. Radish and Fennel Salad looks good. I have a bulb of fennel. I even have a new food processor. Slicing veggies extra thin will be a breeze.

This I do.

I take the lid off the processor bowl.

The radish fumes make my eyes water.

I try a slice.

It is thick and woody and HOT. And not in a good way. Like horseradish hot. These are mutant radishes. What, do they come from Chernobyl?

I pick the slices of radish out of the bowl, toss the fennel with olive oil, and stick it in the oven to roast. At least I have a Plan B.

I was going to roast some carrots to go along with the fennel until I opened that package. I think the carrots came from Ukraine, too.