13 ways of looking at an endive purchase.

1. These are smaller than I thought they'd be. Also lighter. I guess that's good. You need two for the soup, we'll take two. Quarter pound. Okay. One dollar for unethical vegetable experimentation. I'm sure PETV will get me for that.

2. "Do you know what these are?" the cashier asks me. "Endive" I say. I begin to think "Well, if I didn't know what they were, wouldn't that be a far more exciting checkout? 'I don't know what the hell this is, it just looked cool. Is it edible, ma'am?' 'Sir, that's Endust.'"

3. Alternate take: "Not really, I just buy what the websites tell me to buy."

4. Alternate take, with added truth: "Well, actually I don't really know, kinda looks like lettuce, I wouldn't have thought it might be a cabbage, then I saw bok choy, so I know I can be fooled that way. I know it has a name, and that name is endive, but no, I don't actually know WHAT it is. That's kind of the point of the exercise of buying it."

5. "Oh wait", I say looking at where she's pointing. "That's not endive. That's mustard greens." I point two items over. "THAT'S endive."

6. "Do you know how much it costs?" she says. License to steal time. I suggest $3.50 a pound. Amazingly she doesn't believe me, instead marking it at $1.39 a pound.

7. "Too many lettuces" she says. My brain replays the whole bok choy incident again.

8. I realize that I've been saying it [EHN-dyv] throughout this, ignoring the marketing mandated [AWN-deev] method. I find myself taking great comfort in this non-conformity.

9. Crap, I didn't have enough cash to cover. Use the card. Do I have a frequent shopper card? No. Do you think I want people to know that I'm buying endive? (Thinks about what he's typing.) Let me rephrase that, do you think people who would read my permanent shopping record really should let my clearly deranged opinion influence their decisions? I thought not. Glad we're clear on this.

10. Raw, not bad, kind of indistinguishable from every other leafy white thing I've eaten. A little more bitter, but not terribly so. I guess that's the genuity. Cooked, we'll see.

11. Okay, cooked potatoes, onion, garlic, and endive in the blender. All right, now how do I get endive residue off the ceiling? Thankfully white on white won't stain.

12. All right, so this is Cream of Genuine Belgian Endive Soup. Potatoes, Onions, Garlic, Chicken Broth, Milk, Dill, Salt, Pepper, and Endive. It's not bad, but I'm still dubious that I'm tasting anything but the genuity. One of my favorite things in the world is Cream of Potato Soup, and this isn't all that far from it.

13. Monday lunchtime. They claim it can be served hot or cold. A bad microwave in the kitchen and it's served hot and cold. They didn't say anything about that, but it seems okay. Will I make it again? We'll see.