Brussels sprouts

Remove outer leaves that aren’t perfect, cut back any stem that is tough, and cut them in half. Summon family and friends to appreciate how cute they are.

Gently fry them in a large pan with a little olive oil until they are tender and they begin to get golden brown bits. Add some walnuts to the pan for the last few minutes (or pancetta or crumbled bacon when your Veg is out of town...).

Serve warm in a beautiful bowl (they deserve it) after a liberal sprinkling of a coarse kosher salt.

A good option is topping with grated cheese, and letting it melt over. I use a Dutch Gouda when I can get it.

The words fragrant and nutty-tasting may be applied.

Brussels sprouts, in our family and apparently all across America, used to be served on Thanksgiving Day after being boiled until limp, mushy, and vaguely sulfurous. We would then douse them with mayonnaise in the vain hope of disguising them -- but any small child could see them for what they were, and my mother’s usual nudge of “eat your vegetables” was transformed into a battle cry. 

Music for Mothers to Crush The Resistance

Wicked tickers, drums of war:

In her defense, my mother was a truly wonderful cook. Apparently this whole Boiled Brussels Sprout Thing is a cultural anomaly that had is roots back in some mass deception, maybe a recipe planted in Better Homes and Garden in 1957 by Lord Voldemort, or perhaps the phenomenon was induced by mass hypnosis as part of the aftermath of the Roswell incident. Beats me. But the experience is eerily consistent.

A brief web search reveals that many many cooks have shared a variant of the Boiled Brussels Sprout Experience, and we collectively are just now recovering from the trauma enough to brave the Brussels Sprout and try again. So now you see the Brussels Sprout all over the web: roasted, steamed, or fried, the recipes themselves generously salted with words like “gently”, “tender”, “fragrant” and “nutty”. Many recipes begin with, "Hi, I'm (fill in web pseudonym) and I hate boiled Brussels Sprouts."

The thing that won me over was seeing them for sale on their stalks: Drama Kings, glorious and desirable.  If that isn’t enough, they are really are good for you, a cruciferous vegetable that along with their humble cousin cabbage will guard you as well as they might from the diseases that lurk ahead.