Security Shadow Salad

The instant I crossed through the mechanical entryway I forgot why I was there. Bathed in fluorescent light I caught a glimpse of a figure whose movements were strangely familiar, projecting down from the screen above. I moved my head to the side, the woman on the screen copied me. She had dark circles under her eyes and pale skin and looked slightly heavier than I did in my mirror this morning. I recognized her as my department store alter ego, the shadow that faces me in security cameras and window reflections. I often see her at the mall. If I am not vigilant when she is around, she will spend all my money on beauty products and diet soda. I smile at her now and walk past the beauty aisle and stop at the magazine racks so that I can think hard about why I am here without inviting inquiries of customer service. A "thinking face" is the honey for worker bees, who swarm on quiet afternoons such as these. Michael Jackson in various faces smiles at me from the magazine rack. The curiosity of his journey through vanity, changing bodies the way teenagers change clothing styles, nearly drives me trade my afternoon for a seat on the carpet and a journey through every article. Instead I leave the aisle, remembering hard as I pace slowly through the snack section. I stop at the sunflower seeds, I need them, though I am not entirely sure why. After the seeds I remember my purpose, pick up what I need and head home.
Last night in a magazine, I read about a new author. She talked about fiction writing, and about how the characters find you. She talked about she often found herself writing about things of which she had no previous experience. It is similar with salad. Standing before an empty cutting board, my hands and arms select ingredients without consulting my mind, it seems. I gave up planning a long time ago. The salad has an agenda. It finds you when it wants to be made.

This salad is very similar to a favorite salad of mine, which I used to order from a local restaurant every time I went there for dinner. It was often my sole reason for going there.

The dressing:
In a blender or mini food processor mix:
1 clove garlic
1/4 red onion
1 handful basil leaves
1/2 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp water
Juice from 1 lemon
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
Thyme and parsley to taste
The Salad:
Rinse and chop 1/2 head romaine, add 2 peeled sliced carrots, 1/2 head cauliflower, 1 tomato sliced and quartered, 1/4 diced red onion, shredded cheese and roasted salted sunflower seeds to taste.

Christina's vote: "Simply delicious"

The Lifeguard Post Salad

Let me set the scene out of courtesy, it is really quite lovely and I earnestly invite the company. I sit at a tall cafe table on a busy street corner in the financial district of a downtown metropolis. It booms with self importance during the day, it retreats in honest humility at night. The chair I perch in is wide and long, with giant arms. It resembles the lookout of a lifeguard, however, in place of weathered wood it is fashioned of recycled artificial plastic. This is the hallmark 21st century American culture, we have such pride in our technology and such shame about our excess. The skillful barista crossed this cultural tightrope when she commented on my order of a large cappuccino (4 shots) with an identification designed to put my shame at ease, saying that she too "needs her caffeine". Then she went to work on the drink, remaking it over twice to give me a beverage that resembles a cookie cutter factory standard drink. Her perfectionism at the task of piling frothed milk into my cup is likely born of habitual experiences with customers who expect consistency out of everything.

Consistency is everywhere. It is a course in customer service training. Volumes are written on the topic I am sure. "Americans want consistency and convenience"I imagine this phrase as it bounces around the board room table. These values drive our culture, yet I cannot help but feel a little restless and bored with consistency. I have been told my whole life that convenience is what I want. As I walk through the chilly aisles of the grocery store, and see the packages of pre-made entree's, pre-sliced bread, tubes of baked goods, ready diced onions and frozen cooked rice, I feel a heavy sadness. "Convenience" crowds out "experience" as the pre-cut vegetables and frozen entrees take over the shelves that once housed raw materials.

I see now that I have been monopolizing the conversation, your nervous glancing to the side tells me that I am making you uncomfortable. I am not trying to evangelize. I have pre-made foods in my kitchen. I enjoy convenience foods too, at times! I made a tuna salad today from a can, and I used store bought mayonnaise, it sometimes tastes better to me than the homemade kind! Don't leave, please, here have some salad.

Ah, there is nothing quite like the smell of something fresh cooking in the kitchen. I feel sure that knowing foods intimately with my hands as I prepare a fresh dinner has health benefits which cannot be quantified in numbers. Tell me how does it feel to you when you walk into your home, and smell the warm steam of fresh bread in the oven. The sizzle of onion and garlic popping on the stove, and that feeling of anticipation that is delivered by the thoroughly inhaled aroma cannot be served from a convenience package.

Um, how is your salad? Yes, it is similar to a "chicken Waldorf" salad, but I decided to explore some flavors that I felt would go well with tuna. How does a salad rise to fame the way the chicken Waldorf did? I have often pondered this question. This particular salad is made with tuna, grape halves, hazelnuts, fennel and tarragon. Do you like it? I am quite pleased with how it turned out, here is the recipe:

The Salad

Rinse and slice in half 1 1/2 cups of red grapes. Add 1 small head fennel, sliced and diced small. Add 2 cans rinsed drained white tuna in water. Bring together with 1 cup mayonnaise. Add 1 cup roasted, unsalted hazelnuts. Add 1 Tbsp tarragon, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Stir well, serve on a bed of chopped romaine lettuce.

Christina's vote: "a magic carpet ride"

The Diaries of Sweet Mango Coleslaw

A lazy morning spent sunken into the giant armchair of the coffee shop, paging through the early stages of a newly discovered hero. Reading is my forgotten hobby, where words in my mind can be heard and imagined uninterrupted by thought. A blank stage becomes filled with characters, scenery, and sounds...

The refrigerator is sparse at a glance. Condiments appear as an army in the midst of battle. Some have fallen, half empty of their contents. Some stand half open and bleeding. Some wobble as I open the door, crying out to me. I feel a little guilty every time I swoop my arm into the fridge passing over the whimpering pleas of condiment soldiers in search of more viable foods. I tell myself I will deal with the condiments later.

Like a helicopter I drop into the crisper, looking for who is next on the list to be rescued. Who has been waiting the longest? A single head of broccoli rolls around in the right crisper, just beginning to grow "tired", as my grandmother used to say. She was a polite woman and the sort who refrained from using the word "old" even when referring to vegetables. Perhaps in her old age "tired" is the word she felt fit herself most accurately. My grandmother loved to arrange flowers. I thought of her while creating the garnish for this salad; a lightly steamed broccoli bouquet.

The left crisper is filled with reinforcements, fresh produce from the farmer's market. I locate a bowl of Napa and purple cabbage and I crave sweet poppy seed dressing. The mango rolling around on my table is now soft and releasing fragrant olfactory seductions.

The scrape of knife against stone is primal, even when the stone is wedged into an innovative plastic culinary product. I keep the cabbage slices small, there will be plenty of dressing to fill each nook and cranny. The dressing will be light and healthful, not a guilty pleasure but a delivery of macro-nutrients. The sweet mango river will carry just enough oil to rescue trapped vitamins from cabbage pieces, and bring them safely to the shoreline of your intestinal cells.

The warped cutting board rocks against the counter, knocking like a woodpecker. It adds to the drama of my kitchen dance, which is both quiet and loud for as long as I stay vigilant. Sizzling garlic, dripping of mango, whirring blender, the ping of the giant silver bowl.

The dressing (a poppy seed dressing that needs no sugar!):

Blend together:

1 mango plump, soft and fragrant

3 Tbsp canola oil (or sunflower oil)

1 1/2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 small yellow onion

1/4 tsp salt

1-2 Tbsp poppy seeds

The salad: 1/2 medium head purple cabbage, 1/4 small head Napa cabbage, mix together and dress with mango dressing. Garnish with 1 head broccoli, lightly cooked. Heat a frying pan with 1 Tbsp olive oil. Melt the oil around the pan and add 1 large clove minced garlic (remove from heat first) quickly add broccoli (broken into little flowers) and a sprinkle of salt. Add ~2 Tbsp water, put back on the heat and steam until broccoli is bright green but still crunchy.

Christina's vote: "I ate with no intention of sharing"

Fourth of July Fruit Salad

The back room of the store was kept cool to help preserve the freshness of the groceries. We had to wear jackets and winter hats (and eat plenty of chocolate) just to make it through a full shift.

I felt envious of customers in running clothes who pushed walking strollers. I wanted to be buying sunscreen or stopping in for the makings of a picnic instead of shivering under the fluorescent lights. My wardrobe never shifted from winter to summer that year, and I began to hate my jeans (the way ice cream shop vendors loath the sugary, creamy aftermath of too much of a good thing). I longed for a summer life, but my job did have many benefits. I am not talking about health insurance. I am talking something much more valuable. Knowledge. I was there to learn. The produce department, where I worked one day a week, was my university.

Every morning a dirty white truck would back up to the garage doors. The concrete storeroom floors (habitually kept empty for this very reason) would fill with crates of melons and peaches. Corn strained by wooden cages would poke out their husks. Boxes of cherries would rattle, bananas released potent fragrances, the whole room was bursting with the promise of flavor. We wore aprons and fumbled with crate openers, and produce knives. We heaved and slid and ripped and pried and freed the produce into our eager hands.

Then, we tasted. It was a part of our job to taste. The flavor of a peach ranges from tart and lemony to sugary sweet cotton candy. The farm, the season, the weather, the insects, the variety, these things all translate to a unique fruit experience every time. When a plant is threatened by it's environment (an insect, an invader, a storm) it releases "secondary metabolites". You may have heard of them in the supplement aisle, or perhaps on the news, they even earned an appearance on Oprah (the resveratrol episode). These "secondary metabolites" are the plants defense mechanism, and they may have human health benefits (as antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, and maybe more). They are called polyphenolics (a subclass of polyphenolics are the flavonoids, you may have heard of these). Flavonoids, which are responsible for the purples and reds in today's fruit salad, contribute to the flavor of produce.

With so many different fruits, and the variety of flavors within each type of fruit, it is impossible to convey a recipe for fruit salad by a list of ingredients. Here is what I did:
I chose a watermelon. I did this by holding it, feeling the weight, smelling it, and knocking on it. Then I asked myself, what looks ripe? grapes What looks local? strawberries What seems interesting? plums What is festive? blueberries (it is July 4th).

I rinsed and chopped and mixed them together, then garnished with a delicious scoop of Greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey. If your fruit salad is too tart, add some cinnamon and sugar. If it is too sweet add some fresh lime zest.
Happy 4th of July!

Christina's vote: "I felt like I could put candles on this salad and make a wish"

Love and Adventure Salad

"Don't let anybody tell you that you have to come down from your joy" Said the man with the slicked back mullet. His outdated hairstyle matched his shiny yellow pickup truck with the rounded cab: short on top, party in the back. "..and don't concern yourself about what anybody else thinks of you, that's how you get to a place of happiness" Out in the street, the air blew clean and fresh and the grass was fragrant newly cut. My mind felt empty and free. An empty mind, a fertile breeding ground for love of every kind.

I met Christina on an empty mind with no urge to fill it. She drew me to her with her eyes and I found myself a puppet, reaching my hand out, shaking hers, and then performing the fools dance; the one where you puff out your feathers, and show off your colors and laugh nervously and more than usual. The seat next to hers opened up and I slipped into it, burning through stores of breath while stringing together the whistling bird songs of my adventures. She left me questioning. Suddenly I found myself carrying around a locked suitcase, designed to fit perfectly on a clear table. In an empty room the contents spilled open, and vinegar found bitter cabbage, salt enhanced the sweetness of carrot, mango was softened by oil, the sweet crunching of life's freshness echoed booms like fireworks and filled every empty corner with the ping pong game of sound.
I sat across from a friend this morning and listened with an empty mind while she told me about how when she met him something drew her in. She couldn't stop thinking about him, and every movement, every smile, even the "red flags" he wove through the air were perfumed by pure perfection. I recalled the feeling, that jittery feeling, the one they write about in songs, the one that inspires poetry. The feeling you had only played at before, and you never believed it existed until it happened to you. I knew it exactly. As she sat on the very edge of her wooden chair, she was ignorant of coffee, and the smell of pastries, and the mumbling chatter of brunch goers around her. She spoke excitedly of her adventure, and I knew she wanted to shake me and scream "you don't understand how this FEELS"!!
The words ran through my mind "Don't let anybody tell you that you have to come down from your joy"

Once you have learned this recipe, you can enjoy it anytime you want:
Clear a space. Believed in your own abilities. Take risks. Mix flavors and spices. Work with what you have. Taste love firsthand, but don't get lost the memory of that flavor. Let the flavors clear and enjoy each fresh bite anew. Allow love to nourish you.

The dressing:
Blend in a mini blender:
1 mango
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp Ume plum vinegar
2 Tbsp San Pellegrino
1 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp salad oil (sunflower oil)
1 large chunk fresh ginger (about the size of a silver dollar and 1/4 inch thick)
sprinkle of salt and pepper

Using a mandolin or shredding setting of a food processor, shred 3 purple kohlrabi (peeled), 3 carrots (peeled), and 1/4 head purple cabbage. Dress and serve.

Christina's vote: "This was like eating a bag of potato chips without the guilt. Crunchy goodness."

Baby Pea Potato Salad

I grew up in a Suburb of Connecticut, not too far from Manhattan, NY. The only hint of farmland that existed on my radar was the giant talking barnyard animals at Stew Leonards, a theme park style grocery store where you could press buttons and watch robotic cows moo and squeeze milk into a carton. The produce would sing songs for you from the rafters, where they were arranged into slow moving perma-smiling bands.

Of course, I wasn't totally isolated from the concept of a farm. My grandfather loved to garden, he planted a vegetable garden for us in our backyard one year. What we didn't lose to the deer we picked, and felt the warm skins of cherry tomatoes, and smelled the garden freshness, and tasted the heat of the sun as we ate them right off of the vine. My Aunt Molly had a garden too, and she had fresh raspberries and a cherry tree. I remember my brother showing me how to walk carefully through the raspberry patch, picking only the sweet ones by pulling them gently straight back so they didn't smoosh in your hands. It was good for us to do this work, because whenever my mother would come home with a fresh carton of raspberries we would eat them before the groceries were put away and then scavenge the grocery bags for signs of more. The empty carton sat, a flimsy stained plastic shell on the kitchen table, and my mother resigned to cleaning up berry juice from the white counter top while her two littlest kids dumped the entire contents of a weeks worth of groceries onto the linoleum floor. She finally started started buying two cartons, but to no avail. We simply ate faster, competing, berry for berry. Eyes locked, fingers moving fast, teeth stained, bellies extending. We were two little children, small even for our age, but we were fierce grocery devourers. Those berries didn't stand a chance.
My mother, being from Wisconsin, would bring home fresh sweet corn for us to shuck. We would sit out on the steps and get corn silk in our hair and on our clothes as we peeled the sticky green leaves into brown paper bags. This gave my mother some reprieve from our kitchen scavenging.
I stand shelling peas (1 cup of sugar snap peas and 1 cup of snow peas), delivering them from their dimpled pods. Every so often scooping the starchy sweet little creatures into my mouth and savoring the garden memories of my childhood pre-dinner adventures. Eugene (the cat) looms on the high counter top, where he flirts with the potential threat of water spray. Tentatively, he leans in. His curiosity trumps the ominous waving of the water gun in my hand. He is guided by the fumes of food cooking and no matter how I shoo him away I know I am fighting a losing battle.
I sat next to a friend and her six month old baby this morning. I asked her how it felt to be a parent. She said she didn't really feel like a parent, more like a best friend to someone who is really needy. She said she never really imagined she could love someone so much, as she offered her hand for the teething child to chew on in the crowded room and wiped a bit of baby puke from his mouth.
When the peas are all shelled, set them into a bowl with 2 diced green onions (I actually used baby white onions with their stems on, there was a bit of an onion bulb). Boil some water in a saucepan and add 7 small to medium sized red potatoes, peeled, sliced into 1/4 inch slices and quartered. Boil until tender~ 20 min, taste them periodically. Drain them and cool. In a frying pan, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil. Add 2 heads broccoli flowerettes and 4 cloves minced garlic. Add 1 head chopped spinach and a little salt. Cook uncovered until the broccoli has desired consistency. Mix contents of the frying pan with the potatoes and cool in the freezer for a few min. Toss into onions and peas. Add 3/4 cup- 1 cup Mayo, 1 tsp white wine vinegar, 1 tsp lemon juice, pepper, salt, and your favorite spices (I used a salt free seasoning mixture).
Enjoy chilled!

Christina's vote: "The most decadent version of potato salad I have ever had"

Sweetness Unwound Salad

I drove home jittery and elated, my eyes still spotting from a morning spent too close to a computer screen. 

I had not intentionally been sitting so close, my contact corrected vision is perfectly good. I simply had inched forward throughout the day, wanting so badly to do a good job that even my body was recruited to help with the effort. Intelligence, tired from carrying a heavy workload, simply skirted around management and started pulling muscle groups up to the front lines. It was mutiny! Before I knew it my shoulders were hunched forward, my eyes peeled wide, the computer so close that the soft buzz of electronics blared in my ears. 

While sitting in front of the screen trying working on formatting the thesis I would later hand in, my adviser said to me, "you know, I had a student once who was such a perfectionist that it took her years to format her thesis" 

years?

I looked back from the grey bearded talking lab coat with the giant white spot for a face, to the comfort of the screen I had grown accustomed to. Now I was certain. I would never be good enough. 

The clatter of keyboard continued and I prayed that the rhythm and the growing chain of letters would fill the void of everything I was lacking, I was hurrying, trying to outrun the moment at which I give up my efforts, throw back my head and scream,

 THIS IS SO NOT WORTH IT! 

click click click faster and faster and then click, space, italicize, capitalize, period. space space. print...

I looked around me. An empty lab. The buzzing of lab equipment. The showering of fluorescent light. I carried my manuscript around for an hour before handing it in, not sure I wanted to let it go. The grey beard had a face now and the face had large glasses and a huge smile, which faded into view as though I were coming out of anesthesia after having just counted backwards. 

I took the scenic route home. Why hurry? I stopped in the local food shop (literally, they only stock local food), and sampled a few things (one of which was a delicious honey mustard which gave me some dressing inspiration). Then I spotted a beautiful Napa cabbage. It was the only one of it's kind, sitting on a shelf amongst radishes and Swiss chard. The soft texture of the folds scoop up dressings and deposit them on the tongue like a sponge. I had to have it. 

The woman at the counter wrapped the cabbage carefully in tissue paper, as though diapering a baby, and handed it to me with a huge smile on her face as though knowing it was going to a good home. I rode home with the cabbage in the front seat and dreamily, empty of all cares, thought about tonight's salad.

The dressing: 

In a Cuisinart, blend:

2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp local honey

1 large chunk fresh ginger

3 lemons (juice only)

salt and pepper

1 tsp Dijon mustard

In the bottom of the salad bowl, add 1 cup chopped fresh basil and the dressing. Chop and add 1 head Napa cabbage. Add 2 diced tomatoes and 1 cup diced sugar snap peas and 1 cup diced pea pods. Toss it all together well and serve!

Christina's vote: "this salad was sunshine on a cloudy day"