Goji Power

I can always tell when a food becomes a "superfood" and has been "trend spotted" by the buyer for a grocery chain because it gets showcased right out front where you can't help but knock into the display as you push through the entranceway. I became almost irritated when my festive winter afternoon play date got whored by the grocery industry and marketing maniacs - POMEGRANATE OVERKILL. I still don't drink POM juice prefering to unveil the flesh of my beloved's girth through frustrating, with tears of flesh and red soaked fingers. Pomegranate seeds are excellent in salad. The perfect foil to the peppery taste of arugula and the earthy must of hazelnuts. Goji berries, the latest, if not nearly tired, centrefold for the whole foods population. That they come from Tibet is to their advantage in North America at least. Eating a superfood from a mountaintop most of us will never climb in a country swathed in an almost mystical unattainability brings us closer to enlightenment. Just maybe. It beats having to market a dried berry from say Sudbury - "Despite being covered in nickel dust, bears still love these tender dried blueberries, and so will you!" I typically stay away from food fads. I eat so healthily and so consciously that while I am open to trying new things from afar and at the same time shifting my habits to suit sustainability, I prefer a low on the food chain, farmed close to home mentality. That said, I ate some goji berries that my mum gave me and liked them enough to toss them into today's salad of spicy lentil sprouts, chick peas, goat feta, living watercress, endive leaves, sunflower seeds and crunchy, chewy, slighty sour tasting gojis.

Goji berries grow on vines in Tibet and Mongolia. They are a complete protein with antioxidants, and an extremely rich source of amino acids and carotenoids. They are oblong, the size of a peanut, and taste like dried cherries.