So you wanna eat more veggies? You keep saying you do. But I am starting to doubt your strength of commitment in this area.

Take my personal favorite veggie. The beet. Both beetroot and beet greens are very powerful cleansers and builders of the blood. Beets are loaded with vitamins A, B1, B2, B6 and C. The greens have a higher content of iron compared to spinach. They are also an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, sodium and iron. So they are very very good for you. Yet you resist eating them.

I am not your mother however, and this is not a nutrition blog. It’s an “I am crazy in love with food and you should be too blog” But who says love can’t be good for you?

And because I have a healthy love/love relationship with beets I come here and push them on you whenever I can.

I have used them in a salad, an interesting, spicy salad that even included the beet greens. You looked the other way.

I tried to cajole you with the prettiest pasta you’ve ever seen. I even steeped beets in rum hoping to get you to enjoy them at cocktail hour. But still you beat back my beets!

Harrumph… is all I have to say.

Maybe I have too much time on my hands, though I can't see how that's true with my hectic schedule.

Maybe I am just naturally curious.

But I somehow got it in my head that I needed to "invent" a cocktail using the strangest possble ingredient I could think of. I chose beets. But you know what? Beet cocktails are not strange at all, in fact they are quite trendy. Just surf the web if you don't believe me. I did.

Mark Bittman featured a beet cocktail in his column. It's a version of a gin and tonic blushed red with a beet infused simple syrup served in a salt-rimmed glass. The whole concept did not really appeal to me. I am a G&T purist. But I did like his frozen beet stem as a swizzle stick!

Master Mixologist Michael Cecconi has one he calls a Root Cause. It's a beety-based riff on an a whiskey Manhattan. Clever and very intriguing...

I found a recipe for a Spiced Beet Cocktail in Bridget Albert's book Market Fresh Mixology. How does a Beet Mojito sound to you? Well that's already been done too by Chef Katsuya Fukushima at Café Atlàntico, in D.C.

I am "Cooking Red To Remember" today. Because today is World AIDS Day. Angela at SpinachTiger organized this as a way to remember that AIDS is not over. Not by a long shot. So please visit SpinachTiger to fully understand why this day and this event is so important to her. As for my own reaction and my own feelings about this tragic disease, you may read my previous post about this event here.

But today is about remembrance and it need not be sad day. Even under these circumstances. So I am reaching back into the archive of this blog and pulling out a memory of my own. Red Beet Fusilli with Balsamic, Poppy Seeds and Mint. I am reaching backwards both as a tribute to this day, and also because I never cooked more RED in my life! My brother has his own way to remember, so he's also brought us an excellent wine pairing for this recipe. A red wine naturally, and an Italian wine to boot, appropriately remembering Angela's heritage. Sipping Red To Remember! Good job, lil bro!

So let's all jump in and remember joyfully and with a real showstopper? Are you ready? I mean really ready! Because a showstopper is what this really is.

After a week of mustard, I was so looking forward to today’s Market Matters trip to the Hollywood Farmers Market. It is the first blank canvas I have had in the last 10 posts.

I had a few very traditional spring choices in mind, but I tried to keep an open mind.

Boy howdy, am I glad I did.

I ended up choosing beets. Some very pretty golden beets tinged with the blush of magenta. They were so pretty and that’s why they initially caught my eye.

More on my thought process in a moment.

Because I am so excited about what I came up with I just have to tell you immediately, and get that out of the way.

I did a Beet Salad. Once I chose beets I knew I wanted to do a salad because I wanted to do a recipe that included both the beet and the beet greens. It does kill me when I hear people at the market ask to have their greens cut off the beets.

Are you ready for a showstopper?

I mean really ready! Because that is what this is. It is actually very simple to make. Naturally it is delicious. I would not make it if it weren’t. It’s even a healthy pasta dish. But these facts are merely interesting asides compared to its truly special quality.

The fusilli in this picture is standard semolina pasta. It happens to be a well-made dried pasta. There is no riboflavin or thiamine in this pasta. It comes by its golden hue from the creamy yellow heart of durum wheat semolina and water. Nothing else is added to hinder its sauce sucking attributes.

Though that interesting little fact makes it a far better tasting pasta. It is not what makes this recipe a real showstopper.

 The accolades come from its deeply crimson color. The color is so vibrant you could easily call it candy-apple red.