Fennel, Green Garlic, and Gojiberry

With my obsession with garlic confit, each year I forget that garlic is available, for just a few weeks, in its young, green, adolescent form. I was jolted out of my somnambulance, as I often am, by my box from Mariquita Farms, which was teeming with a gigantic bunch of green garlic. The smell of green garlic is unlike anything else, including very fresh garlic cloves; if anyone has ever had the pleasure of sticking one’s face near the soil of garlic plants, it’s kind of like that. Earthy, grassy, slightly garlicy, yet sugary; wildly enticing, in other words, at least to this olfactory processing unit!

Also in the box were three beautiful baby fennel bulbs. Sometimes my method of getting through my Mariquita box includes using up whatever is most voluminous, so that I can actually see what else is in my fridge. So my worms got most of the fennel fronds and branches, and we got an incredible tasty side dish of sauteed green garlic, fennel, and gojiberry.

It was just a matter of slicing the fennel (the bulbs were so young and tender that the entire thing was consumed; usually, I slice around the rather-tough stem and discard it, but this stem was very good), slicing the green garlic (the only prep is peeling back a layer or two of the outside covering, and trimming off the root end and the too-fibrous top), and tossing in a handful of gojiberries. Why gojiberries? For texture, taste, and color: I like the chewiness of them, in contrast with the snap-crunch of the fennel, I like their raisiny taste, and I love their bright red color, which contrasts nicely with green). A drizzle of green olive oil,  some tangerine salt, and a light dusting of chopped chives were e only other things happening.

Green garlic lovers: please give us your favorite ways to use it!

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