I love rapini. I crave deep greens and I guess it's my body telling me what nutrients I need. I don't know...but I can eat a big ol' bowl of steamed broccoli.

DH and I had an app of Korean fried cauliflower, which was amazing. The cauliflower was lacquered with this sticky hot and sweet sauce and it has me hooked.

Crack Cauliflower is on my short list to make.

I remember reading about "kalette" (kale/Brussels sprouts hybrid) in a Fox News report last year - as bumping kale off the "hot" list. I've never seen any at any local stores, and probably never will. We're lucky a bunch of kale is only 99-cents - and available all year round. http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetables/ss/Kalette-A-New-Vegetable-for-the-Garden.htm

You can find lists put out by the National Restaurant Association with their "What's Hot 2016" culinary forecast. And when I look at what's UP and what's DOWN, I decidedly didn't know I was cutting-edge with "House-made/Artisan Soft Drinks" - up 11% - by making water kefir and homemade soda/pop; but I was regretting making a cabbage/kale salad for dinner tonight - which were down 10%. And if "local sourcing" wasn't trendy enough, HYPER-local sourcing is up 5%. I guess that would be what I call "my garden" because otherwise it doesn't mean much to me.

Late summer I need to harvest crickets to make "cricket flour", because that's taken off. Maybe I can corner the market on it locally and make a buck or two by opening up a "Pop-Up Restaurant" - which is up 8% - as I enjoy my Peruvian Chocolate Cricket Protein Powder. Now to find a source for Peruvian Chocolate.....

The only trend I follow is what fits into my $125/month food budget; and choosing whole foods that give me the biggest nutritional bang for my buck. But it's fun looking at what other people think is trendy. ;-)

-Grainlady

Pop ups- people just eat that stuff up! Oh, and if a restaurant doesn't take reservations and has good buzz, it will attract hipsters like bees to honey, all lined up in the rain for hours.

I think I'll skip the cricket powder until a large meteor strikes.

Korean is HOT now. Gochujang is the new sriracha.

Cricket flour was an ingredient in a basket on Chopped. Just watch Chopped to get the unusual thing that will be a must-have next year.

Ah, yes, brussel sprouts were pre-kale, I think.

Microgreens

I think cricket flour is so popular because it's high protein and gluten free. :) Microgreens are pretty much over here, though that's usually true when things go nationwide. They used to have a big presence in my local store, but not so much anymore. Lots of dandelion greens, though.

Matcha tea is coming into 'vogue' over here. (Australia). Matcha is the ground leaves of a green Japanese tea. Has a beautiful green colour.

There's matcha icecream and in some coffee cafe's you can get a matcha latte and of course, the tea itself.

Haven't tried it yet, but would like to. What the flavour would be has me curious. It is suppose to have more nutrients than ordinary green tea as it is made from the ground up fresh leaves as opposed to the dried leaves of other teas.

Kale was a "thing" when I was a kid....hated it....then it went undercover, and then it and chard emerged....cheap and nutritious. I predict carrots because they have always been around, are cheap a good source of soluable fiber and they can be roasted, buttered, pickled, shredded boiled, grilled served alone as a salad in a gravy as a thickener, raw to dip and are cheap and relatively pesticide free.
( sorry Ann!)

Have to admit, I've not grown to like carrots much yet. Oh, I'll simmer them forever when making bone broth, but that's it. And I love just about every other veggie.

Swiss chard seems very trendy here abouts now. I'm fine with that.

I've got a steady supply of chard and have grown to love it. I find it's great in soups, like lentil.

Chard? That's funny, we've always grown that instead of spinach or kale. Grandma used to make me eat it doused in vinegar, I hated it. Now I love it, and it grows well here. Kale too, of course.

Carrots are far more versatile, but I'm mostly seeing things about chickpea flour and hummus and all things chickpea, so I figured it was the next "star".

Now, if I had my choice? Parsnips, love 'em, but somehow I doubt they'll ever get really popular. Fine by me, then the price won't go up so much and I'll always be able to get them. Right now they're sold for deer bait here, $3 for a 50 pound bag, right next to turnips, same price for the same size. Carrots are pricier, $4 a bag. They're all perfectly good food of course, just sizes that didn't fit the standard.

Annie

Annie - school me about deer bait. Lure the deer then shoot them?. I hate parsnips, but turnips I can handle. I see very large carrots marketed for horses here that I wouldn't be able to get a knife through.

seagrass

Matcha was all the rage here about a year, year and a half ago. Haven't heard that much about it recently.

I'm fairly oblivious to trends - I've always liked kale and do not understand why we need something to replace it. I hope it will always be available.

Lately I've been eating a lot of sorrel because it grows so well in my back yard. I've seen a lot of multi-colored carrots in the farmers' markets, and so perhaps that is a trend, but I haven't bought that many of them.

As for chilies, chocolate Habaneros seem to be a current trend, but you pretty much have to grow them yourself, and I'm having trouble getting the seeds to sprout.

Around here it's romanesco!

I have to say, I love rainbow carrots. They're pretty!

And who wouldn't love the dayglo fractals of romanesco? I haven't found a great way to prepare it that preserves the space veg aspect (though they're really very old) and tastes good both.

I love romanesco. It has a lovely, nutty taste to it when lightly steamed and dressed with a bernaise sauce.

Saw romanesco earlier this spring for the first time. $4.99 a head on sale. It tasted too much like cauliflower for me to be tempted to buy again.

I prepare romanesco for my 6 yr old grandson and his friends whenever I can find it. We call it broccoli from outer space and they all love it.

Oh the deer. My backyard is state park for a thousand miles. I could rant the neighbors feeding and cuteness...

(i did watch a twin birth out my kitchen window last year).

A momma bear crossed the highway in from of me...fast...behind me two cubs were running to follow I watched out my rear view....safely....just a couple hours ago.

Wild turkeys gather on my roof.

About the original post question. I've always loved all greens. Gardeners have heads up years before a veg comes to market. I grew romanesco ten yrs ago. Kale-ettes a couple yrs ago. Micro-greens for a few yrs now and should be the next best thing. A powerhouse of nutrition.

Maybe ofal is the next 'hit'...not that i follow it all but if something is magazined/blogged/hip/restauranted/ (lol) ...some new ways to use ofal i would welcome. (Just made amazing meals with tongues and cheeks and livers and flippers).

I do see a lot of romanesco, micro greens, and rainbow carrots around, along with a lot of fermented and pickled vegetables. Veg centric cuisine seems to be hot. Green garlic is also making a big splash in many restaurants. Seaweed seems to be getting big, along the same health vector as kale.

Thanks, Annie. It's complicated, huh? I lived in Michigan for a few years back in the 60's (Standish, north of Bay City as I recall). We used to get out of school for the first day or two of deer season. I remember going to the highway through town with my friends and counting the number of deer on the vehicles driving through.

I do like venison. I like romanesco, too!

seagrass

Swiss chard is always our first choice. And don't forget beet greens.....yum.

Beet greens get sauteed in evoo and garlic (maybe a pinch of nutmeg or aleppo), and beets get oven roasted and used for salads and sometimes warm as a side.

I've been eating beets regularly lately. I'm currently on reds, used to be goldens.

Try roasted beets on whipped feta and cream cheese with some microgreens/baby arugula and lemon vinaigrette ;-)

Seagrass, that's just about straight across the state of me! Here the first day of deer season is a school holiday too. And it IS complicated. I come from a very poor family and I didn't know deer season wasn't year round until I started high school! My uncles called it "Government Beef" and I thought that everyone just went and got a deer when the freezer was empty and the kids were hungry. Of course, I can admit that now that the statute of limitations has run, LOL. So the local hunter types who are accustomed to using venison to feed their families are competing with the trophy hunters who don't care about anything except horns, who are competing against the activists who want no one to hunt, who are running up against the Department of Natural Resources who treat the deer herd as a "harvest" and hunting season as another tourist opportunity, who are opposing the farmers whose crops and fences are being destroyed by deer. (sigh) Good thing I like vegetables!

I love all beets, although I found the white ones kind of "blah", as beets go, and I'll take beet greens over kale or chard any day. Elery, being a good southern boy, had never eaten beet greens until he married me, now he agrees that they are even better than his beloved collards! Never had Romanesco, yet.

Sleevendog, I grew up eating offal, I've always liked liver and onions, deep fried chicken gizzards and giblets in the gravy. Liverwurst too, yum, and German liver dumplings. I know a couple of the TV chefs are pushing organ meats pretty seriously, so maybe it is the new "thing".

Annie

I'm just discovering samphire. Interesting flavour. Does anyone have a recipe?

Annie, romanesco pretty much tastes like green cauliflower, but a bit firmer when cooked through. :) In common parlance people call it either a broccoli or a cauliflower because it's in between, though it's a cousin, not a cross. :)

Ofal has been the thing with the chefy crowd for twenty years now. They just have a hard time selling a lot of it. :) A lot of the eating public don't actually like flavor.

The "government beef" in Michigan sounds like a lot of stories I've heard about "saving" the deer from the coyotes in California during WWII (and probably the Depression before it). :)

IC, I had to look up samphire. Wikipedia says it's edible, but talks mostly about the industrial uses. We don't have it here in California.

I'm curious about indistrial uses!!! It's a delicate green vegetable.

Apparently, it's abundant in England and glass makers in the middle ages located their shops near where it grew because it was used in the process. It was also used in soap. It doesn't say how. Wikipedia also said that the leaves were pickled and used in salads with vinegar. After that, Google suggests the BBC for recipes, and other articles and blogs from the UK. Which I cede to you. :)

I think, perhaps, this is where we eat seaweed. We have seaweed. :) Salty, oceany tasting, not so delicate but useful in many preparations, great in salads.

Romanesco tastes like cauliflower. It's prettier and much more expensive.

Not necessarily in or out of vogue nowadays, but this is the time for spring onions, and omg, they are heavenly grilled (and a bit charred)!

Fun topic.

a couple of years ago I was looking up samphire and I believe one could buy seeds at – maybe Johnny seeds. I didn't buy any and I can't recall if it was because that variety was just too thin -- I'm not sure.

Does anyone know why its ashes are used in glassmaking? The plant apparently has silica (note Latin name).

mimipadv, by "spring onions" do you mean onions like Vidalia or Peru? I love them, but have not yet tried them grilled. Sounds so delicious. Do you put anything on them? Cut them in half? Tell us how you prepare them? I came across a recipe for a Vidalia onion tart -- maybe I'll try that.

For the latest "in" vegetable, I've seen a lot about fermented vegetables (or pickled) -- beyond kimchee).

l'm up to my ears in rhubarb, lilacs and chives. I don't suppose grilled rhubarb could replace kale. Lydia Bastianich (spelling) just cooked up a batch of chopped kale. Looked great, even though I was stuffed with Vietnamese fresh rolls.

(Typing on dinky phone)

starsplitter, we have rhubarb here too, growing like crazy. I'm still waiting for the first asparagus from my patch, I always get impatient.

Cindy and plllog, thanks for the romanesco definition. Cauliflower does not agree with me, I always end up with an upset stomach, especially if I eat it raw, so I'm wondering if romanesco would do the same thing.

Samphire? I had to look it up, found that it was a succulent, and it immediately reminded me of purslane. It's also apparently high in Vitamin C as WebMD says it's used for treating and preventing scurvy!

Annie

First discovered romanesco when we lived in the Netherlands. My husband, an engineer and mathematician, really got off on the fractal veg. To me, it's a mild and nutty version of cauliflower. I can't find it here. But I cooked it often when we were in Europe. Broken into florets, lightly steamed, wonderful grocery store jarred bernaise sauce from France. Along with oven roasted North Sea salmon and baby Dutch potatoes. OMG. So delicious.

Not sure what I miss more, probably the convenience of a no brainer bernaise lol.

Seagrass, I have the answer to your prayers! Look at this amazing recipe.

http://rita-may-recipes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/easy-bearnaise-sauce.html

Islay, that sounds really good.

Seagrass, they won't ship you a case? I have a feeling that Atlantic salmon isn't even close, though....

Annie

Had the samphire last night with salmon, just sautéed in butter for a couple of minutes and it was really good.

That looks really good. Not had samphire. I had to look it up. Poor mans asparagus. And can be grown as a plant. Seaweed salads have been around for some time in Japanese restaurants. I always have a bag of Dulce on hand from Maine and coastal Canada. (pronounced like 'pulse'). I like it raw, in stir-fry, in seafood chowders, tuna salad.

Dulce is said to be the next kale. I doubt that.

I looked up the 'next big thing in foods for 2016' and not much stands out. It seems to take a while for large market growers to switch their harvest methods to produce enough to reach groceries. By that time it is so dilute and lacks the flavor of home gardens. Greenhouse grown heavily fed to grow fast enough for profit and not that fresh....like mesclun salad mix in bags. Dry lawn clippings have more flavor.

At least the focus is on healthy greens and veggies. Fresh and full of flavor. Sprouted grains and beans. I've added a few new varieties to my micro green 'forest'. 7-10 days grow time. 5 5x7 trays going all winter in succession. One large 7x12 tray for a spicy mix. I'm sure that one is soon to appear in stores. Needs to be cut fresh so i'm guessing they will sell it live in clamshells. One fat cut harvest cost about 15cents home grown. The same seeds i buy in bulk i use in the garden salad bed for a larger crop.

I had a new to me veggie (well, sort of - I know they are legumes) this weekend at a restaurant on the Oregon Coast: green garbanzo beans, which I'd never even heard of. They were similar to edamame and were in a salad with a very pungent lemony, garlicy vinaigrette, so any subtle taste was kind of lost. But they were beautiful and a really nice texture in the salad. The salad was farro, red quinoa, green garbanzos, and a little feta cheese topped with deliciously fresh arugula and the most fantastic lemon garlic dressing. My friend and I split an order the first night and went back so we could each have our own the next night, it was that good.

I haven't ever heard of them so don't know how available they are; apparently they are available frozen if you can't find them fresh. Has anyone tried them? My friend says she gets green garbanzo hummus at the food coop deli in Seattle and it's wonderful.

Olychick, I think you nailed it! There has been a lot of chatter about green garbanzos (until now, more a specialty or ethnic kind of thing). That may well be the next big thing. :)

They haven't arrived over here yet!

Thank you for the link to easy bernaise, Islay. Now I need a link to easy Europe lol.. We daydream about a place in France but still have family obligations here that keep us from acting on our dreams.

Green garbanzos are super. Frozen like peas and edamame but you just may have nailed it.

Not sure why that one took so long. I've had them roasted in the pod last year. WholeFoods has them as well as Costco. Frozen. DH had them fresh as a kid growing up in Washington state. Like any fresh produce it is seasonal. I'm growing a dwarf pea for the shoots as well as other snaps this year. Fresh is best so makes sense you had a green garbanzo salad being fresh right now in the PNW. I've got some sprouting now but my July might be too hot for growing. Pretty plant. It is said not to soak them before planting but i'm making a sprouted humus mixed grain and decided to plant a few....

Green garbanzos at Costco??? Who knew?! I was looking online just now and found a post on a site where a woman wrote a couple of years ago that she bought them frozen at walmart. I won't shop at walmart, but that makes me think they are more common than I thought. The salad I had used frozen this time of year...too early for fresh, I'm sure. I'm asking at the farmer's market, though, to see if anyone has planted them. I don't know if our growing season is long enough in Western WA for garbanzos to mature, so no one may plant them, even to market the green ones.

My recent favorite dried brand from Palouse, WA. I'm soaking some now and they triple in size. In just a few hours. Shortens the cooking time. I'm not familiar with PNW growing season but i do know they have tomatoes in the ground a fruit setting...I do not plant until first, second week in June. Sugar peas have been in for a month now so might be a similar growing season? (i have no idea). Just know the fresh season is soon or about now....maybe in a few weeks?. Can be an early greenhouse crop?

The UN is betting on 'the year of the pulses'. Like a mixed sprouted grain myself. In that hope it is about trade and business. Hope. Money. Trade.

"The staggering effort, which included successfully lobbying the United Nations to designate 2016 the International Year of the Pulses, highlights the increasingly dramatic lengths food companies are taking to capture the attention of consumers. And no wonder. Being crowned “the next thing” means big business – just ask the quinoa producers in Latin America, who saw export sales increase from $700,000 (U.S.) in 1992 to $111-million (U.S.) in 2012. Ever since the UN designated 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, Northern Quinoa Corp., one of Canada’s biggest producer of the grain, has not been able to keep up with demand, and the company has just signed a lease on a facility eight times the size of their current one."

next trend....pulse

Sleevendog, the Palouse is about as different from Western WA as is possible. A huge mountain range separates the two parts of WA and all the weather effects that brings. The rain comes in from the Pacific and falls in the mountains on the western slopes, leaving a very dry, deserty eastern part of the state (where they would grow garbanzos and other dried beans, wheat (the Palouse is wheat country) and now also wine country. Much easier to grow tomatoes, peppers etc on the east side than on the west, although people do it. More for their own use or CSA members; not as commercial as the eastern WA growers. Some people in the drier parts of western Wa probably have planted their tomatoes, but it's still very early and they may be sorry. It's often better to wait until later in the season, end of May or early June. Peas are fine, and are grown commercially in western WA.

The farmer's market here in Oly is selling mostly greens and early garlic and scapes now. Western Wa is a great flower growing region, too. Peas soon, if not this weekend. I can't wait to see.

Tulips earlier in the season in Skagit County...Mt Baker in the distance