This article originally appeared on FoodPrint.
Like most children, Lane Selman didn't like the bitter bite of radicchio growing up. "I'm from Florida originally, and it's not popular in Florida at all," she says. "My mother ate a lot of radicchio, with cranberries and walnuts, but I was always like 'What is this thing?' I didn't eat it."
Today Selman, an agricultural researcher at Oregon State University and Director of the Culinary Breeding Network, is a bonafide radicchio cheerleader. Part of her work includes identifying ideal varieties of vegetables for the region, including radicchio, and as co-founder of Sagra del Radicchio, an annual radicchio festival, Selman is often found praising the oft-overlooked winter vegetable. "It brings joy to my life: to make salads with it and bring color into this time when it's kind of dreary. Even looking in my garden, I have several rows of the pink radicchio and it's beautiful," she says.