Unlock the sweet side of cabbage without opening any windows

I have unfortunate childhood memories of cabbage and cabbage soup. When I was a kid, my mother's boiled cabbage would send me running from the house - from the smell. Later, she and at least one of my older sisters spent many unhappy months on the then-trendy cabbage soup diet, complaining with every bite.

I've come to love the vegetable in adulthood, thanks to my discovery of other ways to cook it (or not), with my favorite still being to grill it in "steaks" until charred.

I've even come around to cabbage soup. Alana Chernila has a great method in her new book, "Eating From the Ground Up" (Clarkson Potter, 2018): You cook thinly sliced cabbage slowly with onions (and, my addition, a hefty dose of garlic), letting the cabbage get sweeter and sweeter (this time creating a gorgeous aroma) before adding thyme, then broth, and seasoning it generously with tamari and sea salt.

The crowning touch is little toasts you make from a stale baguette and grated Parm. Float a few in each bowl and they get soft on the bottom and chewy on top, adding a welcome sharpness. The dish is reminiscent of onion soup but much lighter - not diet-soup territory, perhaps, but that's just as well.