S is for Salad

 

Dear diary,

I found a fantastic Mediterranean place here with a salad to die for. Don't get me wrong, I've been on a steady salad diet for the better part of my life and watching every cookie crumb, but not since I stopped dancing. What cookie? I didn't know back then how proper cookies look, let alone how they taste. Now I'm a carbs connoisseur and a carnivore through and through, nose to tail. I will write a separate ode to carbs later, but I'm sure that the meat lovers like me are the reason the French restaurants still serve veal kidneys. Bring on the beef tartare with raw yolk, smuggle foie gras across the Canadian border, hide haggis in the checked-in luggage. Whether you call it terrine, p’tcha, or cholodetz, I will eat it, with a spoonful of your strongest mustard or horseradish. 

Aldous introduced me to the world of real food, and there is no other city in the world like New York to indulge in it. But Chef Stuart put that final touch to my food journey by teaching me how to cook. When you know, and I mean, you really know how to dissect, filet, and shuck, chop, dice, and julienne, whisk, knead, and prove, sear, blanch, and braise, you develop a new appreciation for every plate of food prepared by someone else for you.

That was quite a good preamble for the further praise of a salad, isn't it? Because it was not your everyday salad. Although it was called a Fattoush salad on the menu, there was not much in common with the traditional dish. If anything, it was a Ferrari of Fattoush salads!

Lettuce for bland crunchiness and honey roasted hazelnuts for sweet crunchiness, cooked golden beets for soft sweetness, both sweet and sour pomegranate seeds, bitter radicchio, salty and crunchy pita bites. Pickled red onions, crumbled feta, marinated artichokes, and Kalamata olives, all added a heavy dose of umami, that quintessential cherry on top, finished with a lemon-y dressing. 

It was served deconstructed, mixed at the table, as is the fashion these days. It looked beautiful when compartmentalized, each ingredient in a neat pile of goodness, and even better mixed all together. An attack on all senses that smelled like heaven and highly addictive, I had two helpings from the huge bowl, still couldn't finish, and devoured the leftovers at home.

When I fell asleep, I had a dream. I was making this salad for Nick, of course I substituted ingredients left and right, in my usual manner, and Nick nibbled on everything while I chopped them on a giant wooden board. We were alone, in some oversized log cabin with a surprisingly well equipped kitchen and fully stocked fridge. I even mixed up fresh tahini for the dressing. 

The bottle of red wine had merely anything left in it. The salad was almost ready. The lamb in the oven smelled of rosemary and lemon and lamb. The timer showed forty-five minutes left to cook.