I was drawn in by the simple technique: You pull lacinato kale leaves from their pale, woody ribs and blanch the greens in salted boiling water, just until they are tender. Then you whir the dripping-wet kale in a blender with some garlic and the olive oil that the garlic was fried in and season it all with salt and pepper. The kale, puréed this way, turned a vivid green — a sunny almost neon green. It appeared glossy and completely smooth, and it tasted sweet and mellow. Tossed with pasta, grated Parmigiano and a little extra pasta water, it loosened up, becoming very nearly creamy. And it was done in the same amount of time it would take to make a salad.

“It’s a very simple way to convey new olive oil and a winter green,” McFadden told me on the phone. “It’s an unexpected flavor in the dead of winter.” McFadden left New York years ago and opened Ava Gene’s, his own restaurant, in Portland, Ore. He devoted himself to the growing and cooking of so many other vegetables, but still, somehow, reporters were calling him and asking about kale. I wondered if he was tired of talking about it. “Sure,” he said gently. “Wouldn’t you be?” I saw his point. And I asked if he used other varieties of winter greens to make the same sauce, thinking that this way I might write about something else. But his answer was firm. “I would never make this with anything else,” he said. “It wouldn’t make sense.”