My goodness, how delicious something entirely simple can be!

Here's how cabbage roses -- my name, yes, but don't they look like roses?! -- came to be:

• Come March 1, I'm itching to be in the garden, whatever the weather. Starting about now, several times a day I survey all the gardens (there are a few, yes!) to see what's popping through the ground. This time of year, what you see at day's dawn can have changed by day's end.
• My sister mentioned that she's been steaming cabbage recently.

I spike them with nothing more than a spice mix, this one from FamilyStyle Food actually, but you could use a bit of butter, a bit of salt, or, for real spareness, just the cabbage.

KITCHEN NOTES
I steamed four wedges, two cut-side down and two cut-side up. No surprise, those steamed cut-side down were cooked faster. But they were also cooked more evenly so that's how I'd recommend you cook them, too.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES
Cabbage is inexpensive and available year-round so you'll find lots of it in the Recipe Box. My favorites include these other simple cabbage dishes, Cape Breton cabbage, Microwave Cabbage & Onion (makes great reuben sandwiches) and from a 2004 Kitchen Parade column, Caraway Cabbage.

FROM GREAT FOOD BLOGS
Coconut & Lime ... lucky curried cabbage & black-eyed peas
The Wednesday Chef ... braised red cabbage
Simply Recipes ... sweet & sour red cabbage

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