Kale Chips

The other day I was reading one of those year-end round-ups of annoying things that food bloggers do and halfway down the list was this (paraphrased):

STOP TALKING ABOUT KALE CHIPS OMG.

This made me laugh out loud, because just that morning I had practically dragged my mother into my kitchen to show her how to make kale chips, aren't they amazing, OMG and I couldn't wait to blog about them. I'd made my first batch the night before and they had blown my mind. Then they proceeded to blow hers. So, of course I couldn't wait to tell you all about them, even if I was the last one to the party, by, like, two whole years. And now here someone was telling me to stop talking about them already! They were so over kale chips and these overly enthusiastic food bloggers and their stupid kale!

In case you, like me, have been living under a rock or have just never really trusted that rubbing kale leaves with olive oil and sticking them in the oven would result in something irresistibly delicious OMG I'm not even kidding, then this post is for you.

KALE CHIPS ARE SO DELICIOUS YOU GUYS.

(Is this the best food blog post you have ever read, or what?)

First thing you have to do is buy really nice, fresh kale. (Incidentally, it's the one leafy green that is not hard to find here in my beloved city because Berliners love themselves some curly kale. In winter, it's all over the place here, packaged up in 5-kilo bags to be stewed for hours along with coarse sausage called Pinkel (which also means to urinate? Which, uh, is neither here nor there.)) Back home, you strip the leaves off the ribs and discard the ribs. Then you wash the leaves and dry them carefully (I use the salad spinner and then I dab the remaining moisture off with a paper towel or two). You put the dried leaves on a sheet pan in a single layer, scatter some fine salt over them and drizzle them with a tiny bit of olive oil. Then you get your hands dirty, massaging the olive oil into the kale so that every square millimeter of leaf glistens darkly.

Then you stick the pan in the hot oven and set the timer for 10 minutes, checking every once in a while to make sure that the leaves aren't going black. When they're ready, the kale chips will still look mostly like they did before, albeit a little more cooked. But when you put one in your mouth, it will shatter like a potato chip! A virtuous potato chip, though! And it will be delicious! All roasty-toasty and nutty, salty and delicious! You will probably eat the entire pan clean before your cohabitors even get wind of what fantastical treat just passed them by. And then you will spend the rest of the day dragging people into your kitchen to show them the kitchen magic you know how to do.

KALE CHIPS FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST ANNOYING FOOD BLOGGERS!

I used this video and the accompanying comments for guidance on making them.