I parked brashly, and she handed over the merchandise in a back room on Broad Street. She went by an alias. No one saw cash exchanged. I had a couple of heavies at my side in case the deal went bad. A few moments later, I hurried down the stairs and put the goods in my car. By nightfall the next day, the evidence was gone. What the Fontaine?

Or, put another way …

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, I pulled up in front of WRIR and left the car in a loading zone. Upstairs, 97.3 FM carried on its fall fundraiser. Fontaine, the curly-tressed babe behind Friday night’s killer 9 to 11 p.m. slot, smiled as my associates (two kindergartners) loaded up on free vittles and explored the studio while I made the transaction. Patricia Stansbury (aka Sunny Gardener, her WRIR call sign) wouldn’t take any money from me. “Just tell them about the bitter melon,” she said. I was late for a PTA meeting and 2nd-grade recital at Fox Elementary, so off I went with tots in tow. Now you see why I went with the noir-like opener, right?

Stansbury, whose card touts “Beans, Seeds & Words,” is a grower and holistic-farming advocate with Epic Gardens, a Bon Air–based community of locavores that promotes organic gardening, reduced-impact living, native plants and sustainable agriculture. On the air, her Sunny Gardener Project is Stansbury’s radio voice for education and guest interviews promoting global ethics and environmental stewardship. If you haven’t seen her at a weekly farmers' market, you might’ve spotted her at the State Fair of Virginia, exhibiting Richmond-grown shiitake mushrooms, Delicata (an heirloom squash) and non-GMO edamame still hanging from the shrub.

Whilst bagging edamame (“beans on the branch” in Japanese) for my supper, Stansbury introduced me to a vegetable that looked like it had been beaten with the ugli fruit stick. I’d never heard of a bitter melon, butI decided to take a Kosher-pickle–sized specimen home for a spin.

Admittedly, I was a bit tentative. I sliced it up like one would a cuke and found that the insides resembles those of a ripe squash, firmly fleshed with a generous smattering of seeds. After getting the pan hot with olive oil, I tossed in the slices, seeds and all. Within minutes, the slices turned a verdant green and the seeds an autumn toasty brown. I hit ‘em with rocky salt and dug in. 

If, for you, sautéed rapini delivers rapture, or if Campari and other amaros cure sweet sorrows, this is the your veg. Once cooked, it had the soft-yet-firm texture of celery or mature zucchini (not those tender little babies no bigger than a chubby crayon), with a bitter bite reminiscent of eggplant. And though some discard the seeds, I found them akin to pumpkin, with a pleasing crunch and nuttiness. As with aubergine (eggplant’s frenchified alt-label), ample salt and heat mellow the flavor to a wonderful bitterness that begs for pairing with teriyaki or Chinese black beans.

By now we’re all familiar with the National Dairy Council and the National Pork Board (famous for its “The Other White Meat” trademark, which it bought from a rival pork council in 2006 for $3 million per annum for 20 years). Yet, how many non-staple foods have their own .org site? (Sadly, bacon.org belongs to an IA/UI/IE guy in Atlanta.) BitterMelon.org is The National Bitter Melon Council’s info hub, and it’s a dandy in touting these edible fruits of the Momordica Charantia plant: “A member of the gourd family, it possesses qualities that can be used as food, medicine, and as instigators of situations that promote conversation and community.” NBMC's mission is simple: “unite through bitterness; to promote Bitter Melon.”  

Bitter melon is deserving of the .org treatment because it is also somewhat of a miracle cure when it comes to diabetes. Ayurvedic medicine, the ancient Eastern system championed by Deepak Chopra, in fact, treats bitter melon as “plant-insulin,” because it affects insulin production and promotes blood-sugar control. Studies show that bitter melon enhances cells’ removal of glucose in the bloodstream, and in India’s hospitals, the gourd is sometimes dispensed to diabetics. Apparently, beneath the bizarre exterior, three compounds form a Superman-Batman-Wonder Woman–esque super-trinity that lowers blood sugars, increases pancreatic beta cells and is more effective than Orinase in fighting hyperglycemia. Bitter melon has also shown promise during experimental trials in treating HIV/AIDS symptoms. In this case, the gourd is administered as an enema, that is, after it's been rendered into a liquid.

According to a very recent article on agricultural biodiversity at CNN.com, “In the United States more than 90 percent of fruit tree and vegetable varieties found in farmers' fields at the beginning of the twentieth century are no longer there.” Whether you start with bitter melons, celery root, fennel or the like, I challenge you to put aside your carrots and broccoli for a week and turn that crisper into a goodie drawer. 

Just to make it interesting, whomever posts a comment (and confirms it w/ pix) about the most exotic fruit/vegetable eaten over the next week will be treated to a ripe pair of bitter melons.