While cooking, listen to this: Wildflowers by Tom Petty

Today, I saw Bradley Cooper in the NYC wild.

What normally would have been a typical Wednesday with great weather, quickly became a glorious afternoon. I can’t take credit for the first sighting, though. My assistant saw him first. Obviously, the most logical next step would be to grab the nearest coworker and go get a coffee from the cafe next door to Bradley’s lunch spot. We certainly weren’t what I’d call covert, but we mastered the slow-walk and side-eye.

Totally worth it. I swear to God, celebrities are a breed of their own. They simply don’t make men that attractive in the real world.

Typically, I’m terrible at celeb spotting. In New York, it’s almost required by law to ignore your surroundings. Eye contact is strictly taboo and don’t even think about smiling at dog or small child. The resulting scowl is soul piercing. Though these things make it tough to be a human in NYC, it’s perfect for celebrities who want to go on living under-the-radar. Especially when combined with my complete and total obliviousness.

I always love to tell the story of how I had no clue Ryan Gosling was eating at the same restaurant as my family when we were in LA. That is, until my cousin told me. At which point, I made three separate trips to the bathroom, just to ogle (yes, he’s even more handsome in person) and I have the grainy iPhone 5 photos to prove it. Another classic celebrity moment of mine is when I had to Google Harry Styles and subsequently text my friend to confirm after walking passed a ruffian with long hair, tight pants and a tie in Detroit. And even then, I only knew who it might be because there were screaming teenagers outside the hotel down the street.

All of this to say, I can be clueless, but sometimes that also means I can be easily excited. The unexpected can be pretty great. And if you get out of your box a little but, you might be surprised at who’s rounding the corner, praying you won’t snap a pic and send it to TMZ.

Much like the glorious celebrity, I was completely clueless about what garlic scapes were (I also thought they were called garlic scrapes until three days ago). I got these twisty dudes in my CSA and thought they looked like green curly fries. I also had no idea what to do with them.

A bit of Googling and a heaping assist from Rina (at this point, you should simply expect that), I learned that garlic scapes are the under-the-radar offspring of garlic, yielding a heftier, garlic delight that can be stirred into pastas and stir fries and blended into dips.

And that’s exactly what we did. We can’t say no to a good crudite platter, and essentially used this Green Goddess dip as an excuse to douse our veggies in a quasi-ranch with way more flavor.

Next time you see these curly guys at your local farmers market, give them a whir. They certainly stand out if you take the time to peruse the vegetable stand.

xo, Alyssa

GARLIC SCAPES GREEN GODDESS DIP

Yield: 8-10 servings

Total Time: 15m

Category: Dips, Snacks

Source: inspired and aided by Pinch of Yum

Special Equipment: high-speed food processor or blender

Note: it’s almost a joke to call this a recipe - you can flavor it however you want, and add as much or little sour cream to make it extra…creamy, or whatever. Add more of what you love and omit anything you don’t!

Ingredients

dip:

10 garlic scapes

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Lemon juice, to taste

½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar, plus more to taste

1 cup Greek yogurt OR a mix of Greek yogurt and sour cream OR all sour cream (do you)

Salt and pepper, to taste

serve with:

crackers

veggies (radish, cucumber, carrot etc.)

spoon

face

Instructions

Prep the garlic scapes: garlic scapes are one of those weird ingredients where you only need like, a third of it. Wash the scapes and cut off both ends so that you’re left with the medium-green spiraly parts. Cut that part into small pieces.

Blend, part 1: in a high-speed food processor/blender, add the scapes, olives oil, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar and pulse until it looks like pesto. Add this mixture to a bowl and mix in the Greek yogurt/sour cream.

Blend, part 2: Put half of it back into the processor/blender and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust for seasoning as you see fit. Add all of it back into the bowl and mix well.

Assemble! if you’re serving this for a party you can make it all fancy by putting it on a board with some veggies and crackers and such. You can also just eat it from the blender standing up.

To keep: this will keep in the fridge for about 3 days, covered with plastic wrap.