Recursive Celery

My idea of a fantastic evening is one spent puttering around the kitchen with a glass of wine, and Norah Jones on the radio.  It was during one of these putterings that my friend Brady texted me with a link to a blog post about re-growing celery.  The concept is that you cut the base off a celery, stick it in some water, and it generates another bunch of celery.  Let’s call that Celery II.  And then with Celery II, you cut the end off, throw in some love and water, and voila!  A THIRD celery!  The third celery grows, you cut the end off of that, and holy cannoli, a FOURTH celery!   Ladies and gentlemen, we have recursive vegetables!

The very idea was mind-boggling enough for me to set aside my glass of wine and rummage in the fridge for some forlorn celery leftover from a juicing binge.  I hacked off about a half inch of the base and snugged it in a ramekin with some water.  Then I put the ramekin on the window sill (next to some cucumber seedlings for company) and promptly forgot about it.

A few days later, while I was washing dishes, I happened to glance at it.  The middle bit, the heart, it was starting to protrude!  That tiny little protrusion was enough to kickstart the maternal instinct.  Since that fateful day, Celery II has gotten fresh water every other day, and conversation on the off days.  So here I am, about 10 days post-ramekin, and I have the world’s tiniest bunch of celery.

This weekend, I think it’ll be time to migrate Celery II to the garden.  I’m a little worried about empty-nest syndrome, I’m concerned that CII will have difficulty adjusting to its new surroundings, but at some point, you just have to let go.