Salad: a love affair
May 9, 2011
I didn’t always love beer, and I didn’t always love salad. But now I love both. My love of beer developed gradually and I couldn’t really say when. However, I think I can’t pinpoint my first salad-loving incident to Vancouver, British Columbia, in November 2004.
My parents and I were about to embark on a group holiday tour across western Canada aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train. Sort of like the Orient Express—every bit as romantic (because when isn’t overnight train travel not romantic, even if you’re only with your parents) but quite a bit less famous.
The evening before we were to begin riding the rails, the group dined out at Canada Place on the Vancouver waterfront (pictured below). It was a fine dinner and I ate mine up. It was also the first time I can remember truly enjoying eating a salad. Maybe it’s because it was (perhaps) the first one I had that consisted of darkly colored “greens” rather than pale wedges of iceberg.
At any rate, I ate mine up, and dinner, and then noticed that a couple of my dinner neighbors had left theirs untouched. So I asked if they’d mind passing them over because it would be too bad if they went to waste. They were quite happy to. And I was in my first salad rapture.
Now that I think about it, it was roughly (give or take a couple of years) around the time of my beer awakening as well. I hadn’t gone hoppy yet but I had gone dark, and regularly enjoyed Newcastle with my buddies Jim and Rob whilst we shot pool at City Billiards and they flirted with Liz, our frequent server. At the first dinner for the tour group in Winnipeg, Manitoba, we ate a place with (as I recall) “grape” in the name and Fort Garry Dark Ale on the menu. At the time it sent me into my first beer rapture.
Now I realize I’m merging Canada group tours. The Winnipeg stop was prior to boarding the train up to Churchill to commune with polar bears. Salad in Vancouver was prior to the train heading back east across the Canadian Rockies.
But the point I was going to make was, I had discovered my enjoyment of getting tipsy by the time we were dining in Vancouver, and I know I was at least mediumly tipsy that night. The salad was really delicious and, due to my tipsiness, I was emboldening to beg more off my dining neighbors.
As with the beer, I don’t know when the absolute love took over. But I do know that it has and that if you give me a choice between a large salad and most other things, I will choose the salad. If it were between salad and pizza, I’d have a tough decision, but my current favorite meal is a rare steak and a giant salad. Nothing else (except the adult beverage), just the steak and the salad.
This past week I’ve been enjoying particularly delicious salads. My grocery store changed the way they make their deli roasted chickens for the better (saltier). One of the best ways to do the salad is to get the chicken for dinner one night, then use the leftovers for really tasty big salads that are a meal in themselves from then on. Finished with olive oil and either balsamic or raspberry vinegar, and you’ve got a winner.
Salad, salad, salad!
May 4, 2011
Good old country comfort
November 5, 2010
I’ve never thought of myself as someone who takes comfort in things. I’m not the one who runs out to shop when I’m in a mood (what mood is one in when one comfort shops? I don’t even know), or who binges on donuts and potato chips when I’m upset. Buying a new pair of shoes does not make me feel better.
Nevertheless, I cannot deny how much I enjoy food and drink, and how I use both as comfort and reward. I know donuts and potato chips are technically food, but they’re junk foods so I discount them—empty calories of processed flour, sugar, potatoes. I feel slightly superior that my comfort food takes the form of pizza (dairy and vegetables with a little flour in the thin, flat crust that I prefer) and beer and wine (I experience a chemical imbalance from it).
I engage in a favorite comfort combo is when I’m feeling lonely. Not because I’m always alone because I’ve freely chosen and embraced the singleton lifestyle which I’m generally fine with, but due to those periodic occasions when I actually wish I had another person around. Nothing soothes me like a big old broiled steak, a giant salad with lots of veggies and vinegar and oil dressing, a movie such as “Bridget Jones’s Diary” or “Under the Tuscan Sun” or a James Bond (wha?) and a bottle of red wine, preferably one of my favorites like Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel (a steal at about $7 or $8 per bottle). I’ll be hopelessly weeping by the end of the movie but the next day I’ll feel very satisfied and emotionally refreshed.
I guess beer’s just a general reward for having made to that point the next day. There aren’t many days that go by right now that don’t include a beer or three. I suppose I use it to compensate and comfort myself for the things that I have to deal with in daily life that I’d rather not have to, like working for a living. Not the best reason, but there it is.
Pizza always brings pleasantness to my life—sometimes more than others, as I have forgotten how to stop eating after a sensible amount. I LOVE PIZZA om nom nom nom nom …
When I am getting lunch during a work day, one of my favorites is the lunch special at D’Amico and Sons. I get the Caprese Panini and Tuscan Chicken Soup. That’s a fancy way of saying tomato soup and grilled cheese. Who doesn’t love and wouldn’t be comforted by that? Delicious tomato-based soup with a cheesy overtone and gooey mozzarella sandwiched (pardon the expression) between perfectly toasted and crinkled slices of Italian bread.
I’m sure I could come up with a few other go-to comfort foods (can you say Chipotle chicken burrito, black beans, easy on the rice, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, and green salsa, or The Brothers Deli totally awesome clam chowder on Fridays?) but I won‘t try. You get the idea.
And as for comfort of the flesh and blood kind, how about your cat lounging on you, or giving you a kneady back rub before she flops herself down against you for the night. What’s that? You say you have a human partner? Kids? Pshaw.
Oddly enough, I’ve not yet talked about one of my great food loves, salad. Or at least not that I’ve previously keyworded. In addition to pizza, I also always enjoy a good salad, especially if there’s a lot of it. And eating salad from these large stoneware bowls brings me happiness.
I have loved these dishes pretty much from the time I got them. They, and their smaller siblings of which I also have two, were part of a Rainbow Foods store deal; the pattern is called Pinwheel. I originally bought them to use as salad dishes for my at-the-time two rabbits. They came in four colors—the red and eggplant purple pictured, as well as mustard yellow and khaki green. I decided just a little too late that I should have bought four complete place settings with plates, cups and saucers, and all the rest. A large factor in the delay was that I didn’t know which color I wanted to focus on. I also already have three different sets of dishes.
So gradually I commandeered them from my rabbit(s) (what choice did they really have?) and they are now the preferred vessel for my own salads. I particularly think that the purple one sets off the veggie colors quite nicely.
As far as ingredients bffs go, there are four, all pictured. I already knew that I liked the tortilla+refried beans+cheese combo. But I have only relatively recently come to the variations of each that I now favor, plus the fourth brand-new one.
I have loved cheese and used tortillas forever, and for at least a decade have embraced whole beans as well. More recently I realized that refried beans are my friend—the mashing is already done!
Most recently, I tried the Cruz whole wheat tortillas. They are moist and not at all barky and are more nutritious than corn or white flour versions. On a whim, instead of plain refried beans, I dared to pick up a can of refried beans with green chilies. So good! For over a year, pepperjack cheese has been my overall go-to cheese. I use it in cheesy frittatas for breakfast, sometimes in my homemade egg/muffin sandwiches, and almost exclusively in the tortilla situation.
The surprise entry to delicious is the tomatillo. The Cub Foods where I do most of my shopping (because, I kid you not, they are the only store that sells a pound of spring mix salad greens for only $6.99) stocks heavily on the hispanic ingredients (and if I should use a term other than hispanic, do pardon me please). When I am strolling through the produce department picking up my usual tomatoes, onions, zucchinis, mushrooms, bell peppers, and sweet corn, I always think about the suggestion that each time you go to the store, you pick up one thing you’ve never tried before. It seems like a good idea, but I hardly ever do it spontaneously if it’s not something I need for a recipe.
But this time I did. Hello, tomatillo, my new best friend in kitchen, particularly in the context of tortilla+refried beans (with chilies)+cheese (pepperjack), as well as onions and peppers. You are the finishing touch that this amalgamation was looking for. You are a member of the nightshade family, like the tomato, but you have such a different, more savory, somewhat chile-y flavor. You are perfect for thinly slicing and adding, just before I grate the pepperjack. Bake at 400° for fifteen minutes and you have a simple masterpiece.
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