A Funny, Awesome Thing

Nature's "Frost"-ing

Yesterday morning the vegetable garden was wilted with frost, the first of the year. This morning: snow. For many vegetables, the advent of freezing temperatures spells doom. My tomatoes, for one, resemble nothing so much as a crop blighted by the nameless evil from "Stranger Things". But a funny thing also happens in the garden when the weather gets cold. A funny, awesome thing. Some of the vegetables don't blacken, putrefy, or collapse; some of the vegetables ... they get tastier. Sweeter. Carrots, kale, rutabagas and the like actually improve after being nipped by frost.

I love that. Now, the reason why this happens is that certain plants, when they feel the cold setting in, start manufacturing extra sugars. These dissolved sugars act as antifreeze within the plant tissues, preventing ice crystals from popping open the plant cells like Wolverine at a water-balloon toss. Which is cool, even if your eyes glazed over during those last couple sentences. Think about it: there's an entire class of vegetables who are like, "Hey guys, things are getting rough out there, should we ... you know, get more awesome?" And in this spirit, they join the ranks of other, more-awesome-under-pressure heroes such as first-responders, parents who lift cars off of trapped children, and reality cooking show chefs who are able to conjure a flan from thin air with 3 minutes left on the clock. It's a pretty elite group, one to which I myself would aspire were it not for my own tendency to shake like an aspen leaf when confronted with ... well, confrontations. And when it's snowing outside, forget about getting sweeter, I'm pretty sure my own tissues turn bitter from extra coffee—my own antifreeze.

So let us all, this Winter, strive to be more like the rutabaga. Let us all, in life, turn a little sweeter under duress, a little stronger when the world turns cold. I challenge you, dear readers, to be the vegetable in your life that looks around at the chaos and gloom and says, "Hey guys ... let's be a little more awesome".

As for me, I'll be inside, drinking coffee. But I'll definitely be cheering you on.