Boost your immunity and keep gray hair at bay with turnips.  Turnips score twice with a root vegetable as well as edible leafy greens. Vitamin C, present in the root of the vegetable, helps boost your immunity, which is a plus during this cold and flu season. Second, the leafy greens have a great mineral content, including copper, which is said to keep you from getting gray hair.

The organic farm at Paul Quinn College has purple-top white-globe turnips for sale.  I like to cook the greens and make baked turnip fries.

Turnip Greens

3-5 pound of turnip greens

2 teaspoons olive oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

2 slices of bacon, chopped

1. Fill a large pot with one inch of water.
2. Add olive oil, sea salt, and bacon.
3. Add turnip greens.
4. Turn on the burner to medium heat and cover.  The water will start to steam to the top.
5. Cook the turnip greens for about 5-10 minutes; most of the water will be gone.  Serve with Baked Turnip Fries.

Baked Turnip Fries

3 pounds turnip bottoms

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and place parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
2. Cut the turnips into french fry size pieces and place in a bowl.
3. Toss the turnip pieces with the oil, garlic powder, and salt.
4. Place turnip pieces in a single layer on the cookie sheet and put in the oven.
5. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Serve with Turnip Greens.

What to plant this week:

Radishes – reduce sinus ailments and hay fever
Beets – natural blood purifiers, cleanse the intestines, liver, gallbladder and kidneys
Collards – nutritional powerhouse with anti-cancer properties
Spinach – be strong like Popeye; spinach is full of vitamins and minerals
Turnips – high in fiber and vitamin B6
Oregano – is said to help control cholesterol
Strawberries – sweet vitamin C packet
Broccoli – dietary fiber and vitamin C
Cabbage – healthy bones from its vitamin K
Cauliflower – antioxidant, anti-inflammatory
Arugula – a spicy leafy green with anti-viral properties
Mustards – eating regularly is said to prevent arthritis

Garden Lady’s green dates to remember:

Feb. 12 Rainbow Garden Club Dallas Garden Talk at Repotted
Feb. 18,  8:30 a.m., Small Scale Urban Agriculture class at the TOFGA Conference.
Feb. 17-19 Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Conference at the Mesquite Convention Center

Last summer, a DART bus crashed through the Salvation Army thrift store on West Jefferson at Polk. WFAA had pictures. Luckily, no one was hurt in that accident, as it happened at about 6 a.m. on a Saturday.

Unfortunately, Salvation Army has decided not to reopen the West Jefferson store; the 10,000-square-foot building is for sale. It is listed, as is, for $480,000. C.J. Dunn Commercial already is is negotiating with a potential buyer, says Patrick Patey, a Salvation Army spokesman for the Dallas area.

Salvation Army decided to make the thrift store on Village Fair its “anchor” in Oak Cliff.

“That was our smallest store,” Patey says. “So it was a good time to go ahead and let the other one be the anchor store in Oak Cliff.”

White wines from France’s Rhone region aren’t particularly well known and, at least in this country, don’t get all that much respect. You don’t see many of them on store shelves or restaurant wine lists, and you don’t see many of them reviewed, for that matter.

Which is a shame, given that white Rhones are usually different and interesting, and that’s something I’m always looking for. The Belleruche ($12, purchased, available at Spec’s), from one of the Rhone’s largest producers, has always been one of my favorite wines for just that reason. When I can find it, of course.

This is a previous vintage, and the extra year of bottle age has given the wine, a blend of grenache blanc, clairette and bourboulenc, a little more character. There is lots of white pepper, some oiliness and just a hint of a green fruit, like lime or apple. This is a not a white wine for people who need something fruit forward, like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay, but it’s not supposed to be.

And don’t worry that you haven’t heard of the grapes used to make it — almost no one who isn’t in the wine business has heard of them, either. Which is another reason why the wine is so interesting, and that’s three more grapes for your Wine Century Club effort. Chill this and drink it on its own or with something like goat cheese; roast pork with apples would be terrific, too.

Greiner Middle School parent Rebecca Ordinario lives near Jesuit, but she drives her seventh-grader to school in Oak Cliff every day.

“Up here in North Dallas land, where I live, no one has heard of Greiner,” Ordinario says.

That’s a problem. Last year, DISD nearly closed Greiner’s Exploratory Arts Academy, which is known for its music program. Parents rallied to save it, but it is just funded. The academy’s budget includes teacher salaries and nothing else.

“There’s no budget for costumes, instruments … I don’t think the pianos have been tuned in years,” Ordinario says. “There’s just no money.”

Ordinario started thinking about how Booker T. Washington School for the Performing Arts is so successful. What is their “secret?” she wondered. So she met with the PTA president there and found that much of Booker T.’s fundraising and publicity is due to its advisory committee.

So Ordinario is putting together an advisory committee for Greiner. Goals for the committee are not in writing yet, but they will include fundraising, applying for grants, gaining publicity and securing public performances for Greiner Arts Academy students.

Two women have committed to serve on the board so far. One is an education lawyer who has experience with grant writing, and the other is Adrienne Jackson, a lawyer who is the wife of Sylvan|Thirty developer Brent Jackson.

Anyone interested in serving on the board should contact Ordinario: rordinario@me.com or 214.418.9043.

By the way, Ordinario’s son, Cameron, is the kid who last year was inspired to write the song “Please Save Greiner”:

Molina High School will install a coffee bar in its library and media center thanks to a $100,000 grant from retail giant Target. A courtyard also will be added to the school’s entrance, for performance art, outdoor teaching and socializing.

Both projects are expected to be completed in August. They are expected to cost $50,000, and Molina teachers will submit proposals on how to spend the remainder.

Librarian Hazel Peterson and program development specialist Cathy Pinnell, who have worked at Molina since it opened in 1997, applied for the grant. “The Ellen DeGeneres Show ” invited viewers to submit compelling stories about schools that deserved the Target grant. Target selected 48 schools, including Molina and two other Texas high schools.

Adding cafes to school libraries is becoming a trend since studies have found students are more likely to frequent coffee shops than libraries to study and use the Internet.

J.D. Tippit

The Texas Historical Commission has approved markers for two sites in Oak Cliff. One historical marker will be placed at 10th and Patton, near the site where Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed officer J.D. Tippit after the Kennedy assassination.

Another will be placed two and a half blocks away from there, at the site of the original Adamson High School,the Dallas Morning News reports.

That will protect the building, constructed in 1914, from being demolished or inappropriately remodeled, as DISD had considered in 2009. A group of Adamson alumni fought the school district’s plans and applied for historical designation.

The new Adamson High School is under construction and is expected to open in the fall.

Greenling, the web-based organic grocery delivery company recently launched operations in the Dallas area. The company, which started in Austin and also serves San Antonio, has a new warehouse in Allen.

The company sells local and organic produce, bread, meat and dairy, as well as “sustainably produced” groceries and sundry items and delivers to homes and offices.

Greenling threw a launch party Saturday at Bolsa Mercado, inviting local growers, including Oak Cliff Organics and the Texas Honeybee Guild, for snacks and sips.

Editor’s note: This is the first in what we expect to be a weekly blog from Andrea Bithell of Oak Cliff Organics, who is in charge of the teaching farm at Paul Quinn College.

Winter planting can provide delicious produce throughout the year. With spring 2012 only 48 days away, there are plenty of delicious foods to plant in January:

• Asparagus – Plant now and harvest in two years. It is worth the work and wait.
• Carrots – Fresh from the earth carrots taste better than store bought and also have more vitamins and minerals.
• Cilantro – Great for salsa, body cleanser, and in my book, tastes great in everything.
• Lettuces – Fresh from the garden salads saves you a trip to the store.
• Onions – Grow enough now to store and use throughout the year.
• Parsley – Cleanses the palate and freshens breath.
• Potatoes – Is there anything you can’t do with a potato?
• Green peas – Sugar snaps are perfect for kids, a sweet and tasty treat.
• Fruit and nut trees – Repotted has a wide selection of fruiting trees; peach ice cream is a wonderful summer treat.
• Shrubs – Think fresh from the oven blackberry cobbler, plus raspberry lemonade, and blueberry pie this summer.

After the jump, learn how to plant fruit trees. Plus, the Garden Lady’s calendar.

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An apartment builder that was planning to apply for a tax credit to build subsidized housing on Stevens Forest Drive, near Rosemont Elementary, has backed out of that plan.

Councilman Scott Griggs told the Kings Highway Neighborhood Association the builder had submitted a pre-application for the low-income housing tax credit. The builder abandoned the application after Griggs indicated he would be unlikely to approve it.

“I want to set a tone of mixed-income, including market rate, on Davis,” Griggs said.

In a recent North Oak Cliff town hall meeting, Griggs and council member Delia Jasso said they would be unlikely to approve tax credit funding to apartment projects intended for low-income residents.

Jasso says the city’s trend of allowing that in her district in the past has led to poor development and planning, particularly along Marsalis.

Ever share a kiss on the balcony at BarBelmont? Did your sweetheart first catch your eye at the Belmont pool? If you’ve got a tale of romance, love or even heartbreak, the Belmont wants to hear it.

“We are asking our guests to write in to share their tales of first dates, engagements, weddings and everything in between,” says a media release from Scott Horn.

Follow this link to share your story. The deadline to submit a story is Feb. 7, and the hotel will announce three winners on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. The winners will receive a photo shoot at the Belmont and a night in a garden suite, with chocolate and champagne.