Kales and cooking greens

I will do my best to hold back here but I can't promise much restraint as my love affair with bitter cooking greens goes way back to my Texas childhood. In my birth state a love of greens like collards, mustards and turnips is deep and religious in its fervor. They were on the table more than one night a week, tender, flavorful and lovingly prepared. Usually with a lot of fat, porcine in origin. Texans are not fearful of the ham hock. Luckily and later in life I found my way to cooler climes in the foothills of Virginia where delicious greens like Winterbor and Curly Kale flourish. I wasn't familiar with them but I thought I couldn't go wrong with a cooking method I'd learned from the adorable mother of an old boyfriend. She was also from Texas and knew good greens without them having to slap her in the face. However, she was also a practitioner of holistic medicine and a yogi who had long ago sworn off animal products and unhealthy fats. She showed my the way and I have not looked back. This is my favorite method for cooking hearty greens of any kind. Wish I could take credit for it.  Wash and chop everything into a very large bite size and fill a large cooking vessel with just enough water to cover the greens about two thirds of the way. Salt and pepper the cooking water  generously, you want the cooking liquid to be flavorful as the salt helps to leach and mellow any bitterness. Add is a good shake of crushed red pepper, a glug of olive oil and five or six garlic cloves peeled and smashed with the side of a knife. Cook on a high simmer for about ten minutes and then turn the fire down to medium low and continue cooking for another ten to fifteen minutes until the greens are tender but not mushy. Pour in a good slug of cider vinegar and serve. Preferably with cornbread and a mess of blackeyed peas. But if you happen to hail from Texas then you were going to do that anyways.