How are brussel sprouts grown?

Ever since I had to prepare meals regularly for hubby, I learnt so much more about food. Shopping for groceries is sometimes an adventure because I would come across stuff I never expected to learn.

Here's an example: This is a picture of a brussel sprout I took with my camera.

And here is a picture of a cabbage I found off the internet from healthandayurveda.com
They both look so similar, don't they? Size would be an obvious difference - the cabbage is relatively bigger. But are brussel sprouts "babies" that can eventually grown into cabbages?

I wondered because the word "sprout" reminds me of "bean sprouts", meaning a baby plant. So it could be possible that the brussel sprouts are actually "cabbage sprouts"? lol

Even the di-section (cut into half from the middle) of the cabbage looks exactly like the di-section of a brussel sprout, as you can see from the picture below. And that is because according to wikipedia, they both come from the same cruciferous family of vegetables:

Image from howstuffworks.com

But do brussel sprouts take root directly from the ground like the cabbage?

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Nope!

Here's what I bought from the supermarket recently, look at what it says:

Yes, Brussel Sprouts grow from a Stalk! Not individually from the ground like the cabbage! Can you believe it? lol I love being surprised!

Here's a picture of a brussel sprout plant from biologie.uni-hamburg.de

Haha, now that you know the answer, it is time to enjoy some photographs from us!

The brussel sprout stalk is a little longer than the length of our torsos.

Here's the size of it, placed beside the Wall Street Journal papers.

Without flash:

As you can see, the leaves are cut away from the leaf-stem, making it easier to transport.

But it would be the simplest to transport it without the brussel sprouts still attached to the bulky stalk right? That is why we often seen brussel sprouts in supermarkets already detached and packed into a container or a bag.

The reason why they sold an entire stalk (for US$4.99, which is cheap considering that it has so many sprouts on one stalk) is probably because brussel sprouts are fairly popular in the fall, for the Thanksgiving holiday. The brussel sprouts also taste best after experiencing the first frost of Fall. Those that are grown in temperatures that are too warm or in prolonged cold are said to taste quite bitter in comparison.

All I need to do before cooking it (boil it in soup or roast it in the oven) is to pluck the sprouts off the stem with my fingers. :-)

The round buds of the brussel sprouts grown from the corner in between the stalk and the leaf-stem. I thought of this imagery: If the Stalk is likened to a Torso, and the stem is the arm, then the brussel sprouts would be growing out of the "armpits" of the plant. Hee hee!

Perhaps without the leaf-stem, you can see where the brussel sprouts grown from better:

Tada! We have taken all the brussel sprouts to cook! The stalk is now empty. ^_^

Have a good fall season. <3

Trick or Treat? A one million dollar note

Guess what I saw last night?

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One

Million

Dollars

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...

On a single US note!

Would it a note like this be a trick? Or a treat?

Well, with all the fiscal policies the government is taking, maybe we are gonna be facing a runaway inflation. The greenbacks are going to turn into banana notes.

Like if US$1 = 1 Rupiah

*shrudder*

That's neither a trick nor a treat to me. Considering that we are saving in USD, it'll be a nightmare for us to lose everything to inflation just like that.

Autuum sights around my neighbourhood... no more lilies but lots of berries.

Summer is over, and the air is turning cold. How strange it is, that during the summer we wish for cooler nights, and when it's gone, we miss it as we huddle under the blankets wondering when the central heating would be turned on. Hubby and I are decked in long pants and doubling the comfy T-shirt with another long sleeved one on top.

Looking though some of the photographs taken during the summer makes me feel warmer though. Here's the last time Hubby and I went to the beach this summer. This was taken Aug 1st '09. But alas, the earth continues to spin, the weather continues to change. No more flip flops, bare legs or arms, and no need for sun hats... Although I think it is significantly cold now...about 14 oC, not all the foliage has withered away. Most in fact are still green, though the first signs of autumn has started showing itself. The sugar maple tree is the first to start turning red. The other maples have not turned yet. Here's a tree, half-red-half-green.

A clearer shot of the red leaves below. It is standing beside another species of Maple, but as you can see it is completely green.

The oaks are still completely green too, can't wait for them to turn red. In spring time, we get lovely cherry blossoms, tulips which soon disappear into the summer, with lots of lilies and roses blooming away. Now the lilies have withered, and the roses that were blooming have now turned into "fruits", little rose hips.

And A LOT of shrubs around the neighbourhood bore lots of berries on their branches! Berries berries everywhere! Here, I'll show you:

Red berries close up:

From this red berry bush:

Another red berry bush...you can see from the needle-like leaves, that this is a different bush:

A close up of the berries... they look like little bells.

Here's another shrub with lots of orange colored berries.

But most unique of all are these tiny purple berries, in an amazing striking shade of violet:

Every twig joint seems to be sprouting a little cluster of these purple berries.

And here's what this bush looks like. Quite interesting isn't it!Every season has its popular flowers. And as I was telling my mother the other day over the phone, that although chrysanthemums are really popular back in Singapore during Spring (Chinese New Year) time, they seem to be all the rage here in the fall! It's the main potted flowers on sale at the Farmer's Market now. Some red chrysanthemums: This is a really common sight now. I think it may be part of Thanksgiving. Red, white, yellow chrysanthemums lining the stairway to the house:Do you notice two little orange things displayed alongside the chrysanthemums outside people's houses too? They're pumpkins! Hahaha if they were mandarin oranges, it'll really look like Chinese new year together with the chrysanthemums isn't it! Here's another picture of Chrysanthemums with much larger pumpkins on the stairway of another house:

Hubby tells me that Thanksgiving was a holiday that started when the early settlers in America wanted to thank God for all the harvest and blessings for the year. Which is a nice thing to do, being in a strange land far away from their European home, growing crops like corn which they have never grown before.

Anyway, the pumpkins have varying sizes, and here's an example of some small pumpkins sitting on the window sill: And here are some really HUGE ones, taking up the entire space on a garden bench. Other than pumpkins, there are also decorative maizes and squashes, and "scare crows" on sale. Here at the supermarket they also sell MINI pumpkins! I've seen some offices use these mini pumpkins as decorations on the front desk. Did you see the painted on faces on the larger pumpkins? Haha, what does that remind you of?
Halloween! Haha some houses of the neighbourhood are decorated for Halloween too. And supermarkets are having big sales on candy and mini-bars of snickers, Reese's, etc. I wonder what is it they put to make it look like they have cob webs around the fence. Can cotton wool stretch that long? And wouldn't it be soaked from the autumn rains?

Anyway to end, here's a picture of a house decorated for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. With plastic "ghost dolls", scare-crows, and a pumpkin at the doorstep. Can you spot the pumpkin in the picture? It's a big pumpkin, but it turned out really small in the picture. ;-)

Goodbye Summer.