i can’t find kale here

my favorite vegetable (i know, you hush) as a metaphor for how life goes.

with all this beautiful agricultural land… no one’s growing kale?

i don’t know, i guess… most things don’t bother me that much here. except. except! why do they not have kale in the grocery stores? of all the “american foods” i considered whether or not i would miss, i did not count on kale being a lead food on the list. but there it is friends - no kale.

i really like kale. i like kale salads, massaged with lemon or vinegar to break it down and paired with salty/briny things. i like it in soups too, or wilted with some warm vegetables. and i love kale in my smoothies. i like the greeny grassy taste of it. 

but no, no kale here. at least not in my region, or at least not this time of year. arugula everywhere. spinach, absolutely everywhere. those cute little heads of lettuce that you buy in a pack of 3 or 6, little individual salad bunches? everywhere. but kale? no, ma’am. no kale for you.

and still, every time i go to a grocery store, i scour the produce section for kale. i still keep hoping that what i expected to be there… will be there. i get frustrated that what i wanted to have just isn’t the way it is.

and then i get all philosophical about starting a new life in a new country, and how isn’t the lowly kale a metaphor for all of our life right now. things are not going as planned. nothing moves as fast as we’d like and we’re not sure where all the pieces will land and how we will put together our new lives here. the plan is not clear. we thought the plan was clear, but then the plan fell through, and then plan b fell through, and then… the things we thought would happen, they aren’t happening. a large investment is turning out to be… either a slow start or a complete bust. ani’s stomach issues have gotten worse, not better as we thought they would. oh and the “covers everything” insurance for expats? yeah, we found out just yesterday that it doesn’t cover the standard test ani needs to figure out why it’s so bad. not until we’ve been insured by them for 300 days. so like… next april. to add insult to injury, the bakery in town is… lackluster. this continues to be both a disappointment and i do imagine, a healthy turn of events. if i could eat a croissant every day i would–as evidenced by the last time i lived here. but i’m also picky about my croissants- and you can find really great croissants in Spain, here and there, but not always, not even close. and our bakery here in l’albi? they do the kind of croissant that has kind of a sweet clear glaze on it, which seems to be all the rage around here. i am not joining the throngs.

so from big things like investments and health issues to small things like the quality of croissants and the curious case of the lack of kale, things just don’t always turn out like we thought they would.

and sure, that’s life, right? here in spain, in our new life, or back in the states, in the same life you’ve been living for decades- life does not turn out the way we plan or hope. it rarely all works out, and yet… it all works out. ani will still be able to get her test, whether our insurance company wants to pay for it or not, since the medical system here isn’t bankrupting people. our investments will grow. we will build a beautiful new life here, it’s just not as smooth a path, taking longer than we thought. i will still find plenty of stellar croissants. and, i suppose, until i receive kale seeds in the mail from one of you to plant my own row of kale supply grown on my balcony, there’s always spinach. 

so… who’s mailing me kale seeds?

rosemary in abundance, from bushes out in the plaça; sourdough starter for bread at home; and chorizo, amazing chorizo. but no kale.