Market Watch: Romanesco cauliflower's spectacular looks

Of all the produce available at farmers markets, far and away the most spectacular is the Romanesco cauliflower. Typically smaller than a standard cauliflower, vivid chartreuse and conical in shape, it displays an ornate fractal pattern in which each floret presents the same appearance as the whole head, in miniature. The result is that the eye zooms in on one turret, then another, and gets mesmerized by the swirling, logarithmic spiral of its self-repeating design.

By David Karp, Special to the Los Angeles Times

February 11, 2011