How to keep greens fresh and happy seems to be the culinary equivalent of keeping one’s skin young: it’s a losing battle, but everyone hopes to find the magic technique.

Wash, don’t wash (we’re talking about greens again now; we’ll address personal hygiene another time), wrap in plastic, cloth, or a paper bag, keep on the counter or refrigerate, and even this one: put the herbs upright in a glass of water and place on a shelf or in the door of your fridge. (That gave my French-sized refrigerator a good laugh.)

I’ve experimented with those ideas to varying degrees of success — mostly on the lower end of the scale — and after throwing out enough wilted herbs to start a compost heap, I’ve finally found the M.O. that works for me, so I thought I’d share.

When I get back from the greenmarket on Saturday mornings, I put my purchases away, sit down for a cup of coffee, then get to work.

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I used to think winter produce was drab, and that the cook’s only option was to wait the cold months out, squinting into the distance, longing for asparagus and strawberries to appear (“Anne, Sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?”).

Now I can’t imagine how I could ever be so blind: what of mâche and winter squash, what of flower cabbage and broccoli, what of endives and leeks and chard, what of this grated carrot and beet salad? Do they count for nothing?

If you’ve never tasted the root of a beet in its raw state, I urge you to give it a try, whether or not you (think you) despise cooked beets.

Perhaps it has helped that the Paris winter has been so mild (again) this year and that — in my memory, at least — the sun always seemed to be out on Saturday mornings, as I vélibed to and from the greenmarket.

Whatever the reason, this is the first year I registered a distinct pining when my habitual provider confessed he would have no more winter pears for me (it’s been such a good season for pears!) and when I saw, a few stalls down, the first crop of fresh peas.

“Oh, no!” I sobbed in my turquoise scarf, “this is too soon! I’m not ready to let go of winter just yet!” And then I thought, “I must write about the grated carrot and beet thing before everyone moves on to greener pastures.”

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It is a universal truth that, however hard you try to clear the table before you take a trip somewhere, you will come home to several pressing deadlines. Add to that the general vertigo of readjusting to your own continent, time zone, hemisphere, language, driving side, and opposing season — the latter is probably the most disorienting –, and an entire week may slip by before you find your footing and report back on said trip.

Let me first express my gratitude to the C&Z readers who took the time to answer my request for edible recommendations in Western Australia: thank you! Your tips and notes proved immensely helpful, not to mention fun to collate.

They really built up my anticipation, too, and I’m pleased to say the actual experience managed to surpass my expectations: WA (pronounced “double-you-ay”) has a lot more going for it than most people realize, and during my stay in both Perth and Albany, I was impressed by the variety and quality of local foods.

Here are a few highlights, in no particular order. (Not everything I sampled was strictly local, I should note, but when you’ve come all the way from France, the notion of “local” can span four thousand kilometers.) Here we go.

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My sister’s husband has a passion for Nutella. When Ferrero put out a 40th-anniversary Nutella jar* of woolly mammoth** proportions, Christian bought one and actually spooned his way through it. Not in one sitting, admittedly, but still.

I love my brother-in-law dearly, so when he and my sister came to dinner a few weeks ago, I thought I’d treat them to Nutella ice cream for dessert. I considered going the classic ice cream route, starting with a custard base to which I’d add Nutella, but I was feeling under the weather and this was more work than I wanted to tackle.

Instead, I used a much easier, much more straightforward formula: equal weights of Nutella and evaporated milk (lait concentré non sucré), combined and churned into the creamiest, most indulgent concoction ever to emerge from my ice cream machine.

Nutella and evaporated milk churned together into the creamiest, most indulgent concoction ever to emerge from my ice cream machine.

This first attempt at Nutella ice cream was wildly successful (and I do mean “I would marry you if I hadn’t already married your sister” successful) yet two problems remained: 1- although the French version of Nutella contains no transfats, it still leaves much to be desired on the nutritional front, and 2- the one-to-one ratio resulted in an ice cream that was, in my opinion, sweeter than strictly necessary.

It took little brainjuice to figure out a solution: replace the Nutella with an all-natural, organic equivalent, and use less of it.

Nutella Ice Cream From Just Two Ingredients!

My organic store stocks several brands and variaties of chocolate hazelnut spread, involving different proportions of hazelnuts and chocolate. After studying the labels for a while, I set my heart on Jean Hervé‘s Chocolade, for three reasons: I’m already addicted to his stone-ground nut butters, a portion of the company’s sales is donated to a charity that builds schools in Madagascar, and the guy has a ponytail.

As the obligatory spoon test revealed***, this Not-ella is less sweet than its world-renowned cousin, and less eerily smooth, too. It would be unfair to describe the texture as grainy — it is not — but the tongue senses and aknowledges that real hazelnuts have given their lives for the cause.

And I’m happy to report that, when enrolled in this Nutella ice cream project of mine, La Chocolade performed to the complete satisfaction of all who had a chance to taste it before the tub mysteriously emptied. The ice cream was most often paired with the best sablés in the galaxy (I’m serious): Poilâne’s punition cookies, which now come in an adorable spoon shape to serve with coffee, or, for a limited time only and until the Saint-Valentin crap finally boils over, in a heart shape.

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* I believe this collector’s item weighed in at 5 kilos (~11 pounds).
** Did you know woolly mammoths had a flap of hairy skin over their anus to keep out the cold? Can you think of a more endearing feature? or a more appropriate topic to discuss with your V-Day date?
*** The spoon test should be conducted as follows: take spoonful, place on tongue, close mouth, draw spoon out, close eyes, swish, chew, swallow.

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