An ode to radishes, or how to live without your grandmother

I've been eating a lot of radishes lately.  They've been showing up each week in our CSA, and it makes me happy to see them because they remind me of my grandma Mary.  Most people would not wish for the humble radish to be the thing that makes one think of you, but I imagine that if I could call my grandma up and tell her, she'd be pleased.

I remember as a very young child, harvesting radishes from the garden with her.  My picky tastes would not abide by such a vegetable.  They looked almost like candy, so bright and red, but the bitter spiciness inside was more than I could bear.  My grandma, on the other hand, relished them.  She would eat them whole, fresh from the garden and serve them plain with dinner.  She had very simple tastes and was never one for fanciness or superfluity, so it seems right that in my memory she is tied to the earth and the land she farmed, just like those radishes.

It's been almost a year since we lost her, right before Mother's Day, without warning. Sometimes I forget she's gone until the memory hits me, like a sucker punch, and I can't catch my breath.  It's hard to imagine a world without her in it.  Without her farm as a homing beacon, telling me if all else fails, there is at least one place where I belong.

But this is the world we live in.  So I eat radishes.

In salads:

And roasted:

Roasted vegetables with white beans, quinoa and a balsamic glaze.

And I remember.