Kale, Not Collard: A sistah aint worth her ____ unless she can make a jam-up kale salad.

All praises to kale greens.  In the ATL, I see kale salads more and more.  Used to be, most sistahs could cook some collards; maybe not turnips or mustards, but definitely collards.  Collards were queen.  On most tables you could find them.

At recent Black gatherings in the last few years, I have alarmingly found collards left off the table.  No collards?  What?  Can it be?  In addition to the loss of fiber, seems like we are losing heritage.  We could get collards anytime of the year; we could grow them ourselves, even in our front yards, amongst our flowers.

Thank God that we sistahs are working the kale:  cookin' it, juicing it, tossing it, and in my case mashing it.  Okay, the recipe.

AFIYA'S SMASHING KALE

Take the freshest kale you can find (grow your own if possible) and place it in a bowl.  Cut up some onion, garlic and ginger (as small as you like it).  Put in a squirt or two of olive oil.  Chop up some olives and sundried tomatoes.  Add anything else that appeals to you like chopped celery, shredded carrots.  Oh, and a little curry goes a long way (forgot this in mine, and it is still delicious).  Chop an avocado.  Put in some salt:  sea salt, braggs liquid aminos or soy sauce.  Lastly, some nutritional yeast:  throw some in.  Now, take both hands and smash to your delight like you are kneading dough.  Now, sit back and enjoy.  Oh, last:  lick the bowl.