I Dream of Sushi Salad

Jesse lay fully extended on our small, shiny, red IKEA couch. His legs hung off of one end and he looked like a teenager who is not yet used to his full grown length. He had a large grin on his face, causing his characteristic one sided dimple to crease, and his eyes to squint blissfully. In one hand he held a large black genie bottle, the kind that resembles the standard queen piece in a game of chess, with gold and blue painted details. In the other hand he held a worn out plastic bag with two little white handles. Inside the bag was a number of pieces of cloth, all in various shades of pink. For once Jesse didn’t even notice me as I walked in the door. He usually jumps up to come and give me a welcome home hug.

"What are you doing Jesse?” I asked. Nothing.
“JESSE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I repeated, louder. He looked up startled.
“I’m playing with Jeannie” he said, and he held up the little bag of pink cloth. From the first time he watched I dream of Jeannie, Jesse was in love. It has probably been ten years since he acquired that I dream of Jeannie costume, but he keeps it in mint condition neatly keeping it wrapped in plastic as though it were a marvel comic book. The mind of Jesse is a complete mystery to me, and I often find myself asking him all sorts of questions to try and figure out how it works, but to no avail.

“Jesse, what do you mean by playing with Jeanie?” and he held up the bag as though to say, isn’t it obvious?

“Do you see Jeanie? Is she here?” I asked.

“Yai yai yadow!” He said back to me, and shook his hands in the air, which I think means that he is happy.

“Does that mean you are happy? Jesse are you happy?”

“Yeah. Can I play with your ponytail?” Change of subject.
“No Jesse, you can’t just go around asking women if you can play with their hair.”
“Why not? Because it would be…” He leaned in waiting for me to finish the sentence. This usually leads to a series of questions about what would happen if he broke the rules. I kept thinking, I am not going in for it. “Why not Emily” I ignored the question. “Hey Emily, I can’t play with your ponytail because it would be.. because it would be… Emily, because it would be…” He will never stop asking.
“Inappropriate” I said, defeated.
“WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?” Jesse’s favorite question. “WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?? Would I go to JAIL???”
“Yes Jesse, they would lock you up and you would go to jail” I think he likes this answer. It’s a schtick, an obsession. The pattern of the phrase, and the way the words sound seem to be more important than the meaning of the words. It’s like when he practices movie lines. He never gets tired of repeating the same scenes over and over again.

Catherine, Jesse and Christina’s mother, recently discovered that Jesse has honed each of our voices and can perfectly parrot every member of the family. “Jesse, how would I say ‘I would like to go to the movies?’ Catherine asked. Jesse’s eyes half closed and in Catherine’s rich and regal voice repeated ‘I would like to gooo to the moovies’. He did Everett, Christina, and Shawn. He did my voice, which sounded like a munchkin on the wizard of Oz, but since he got everyone else’s voice to a T, I have to accept that that must be what I really sound like. He did Karen’s voice with a perfect English accent, and Baba’s voice with his touch of Iranian.

We have decided to start having more regular sit down dinners, so that we can all get better at having regular conversation. During these dinners I keep trying to get answers out of Jesse about what is happening inside his brain, but he just gets annoyed with my inquisitiveness and asks if he can turn on “I dream of Jeannie” on the computer.

I Dream of Sushi Salad
This salad is in honor of the spicy tuna roll.
1 can tuna fish packed in water, rinsed and drained (if you have fresh cooked tuna, even better!)
¼ chopped Vidalia onion
1 Tbsp chopped pickled ginger
1 tsp wasabi paste
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
2 garlic scapes chopped
2-4 Tbsp mayonnaise (depends how you like it)

2 small slicing cucumbers or 4 Persian cucumbers

Mix together the top ingredients and use to top cucumbers with (if you are not worried about presentation you can just mix the cucumbers in with the salad).

Christina's vote: "This salad was unblemished"

Barefoot Pasta Salad

I walked through the hospital. My feet were throbbing and my head felt light. If it weren't for the name badge swinging from my neck I might have thought my body no longer existed above the shoulders. It was a day filled with too much thinking while standing in one place. I pulled open the Velcro on my shoulder bag, and the ripping sound echoed off of the linoleum floor and around the empty halls. It felt strange to be in those halls when they were empty. A tornado had come and gone that day, but I hadn't noticed. When I left in the morning, the sun was shining. News of the tornado came in periodic spurts throughout the day. It was carried in by the summer interns. Now it was 5:30, and sun poured in from the skylights, as though nothing ever happened. I pulled out my phone and hit the message icon, then put it up to my ear.

"Call me back" click.

It was from Matt. He never leaves more of a message than that. I spent a few minutes guessing what he wants. He usually wants to talk about when we can schedule a run. I knew it couldn't be about running because he was supposed to be on an airplane to Phoenix. I imagined him kicking back on an airplane, his black curls hanging out of his hat. He leans over Pam's shoulder to look out of the window. He entertains himself by joking around with the stranger sitting next to him. He's too quick, and the stranger doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. Matt doesn't care, he mostly jokes to entertain himself. I remembered that I had given him a book just before he left, and I imagined he must have been reading it. I pushed the call back icon.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I said.
"Boarding a plane." He said. "I have a question for you."
"Yes? what is it" I asked.
There was a long pause. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "Is this book for real?"

The book I had given him, was "Born to Run" It is an incredibly inspirational book about a tribe of runners that are able to cover unbelievable distances at unbelievable speeds, wearing unbelievably minimal foot protection. They usually continue running into late stages of life without injury. As a culture they are humble, modest, and supportive of each other. They appear to run on pure joy, chia seeds, and cornmeal. They are the Tarahumara. After reading the book myself, I felt totally inspired, awakened even. I felt like I had been running for all the wrong reasons. I had been seeking fitness, and speed, and personal successes, but the book introduced me to a new endpoint. It was a more complete form of health. Joy. Run because it is fun. Run because it makes you feel free. Run because it connects you to the air. After assuring Matt that it was supposedly a true story, written by a journalist, he agreed to train for an ultra with me and perhaps try out barefoot running.

After talking to Matt, I looked at my clock and realized that I was going to be late for run club. I also had to make a salad and get a picture of it before I lost the light. I made this salad in 20 minutes (I didn't wait for everything to cool before mixing it together) and it was nearly gone by the time I got back from my run (a sign that the family approved of this one).

Due to the heavy air and heat left behind by the tornado, only a few people showed up for the run tonight. We split up by paces. I ran with John, who has also recently finished "Born to Run" and has been communicating over email with many different barefoot runners. We decided we would take off our shoes for 5 minutes and try out shoeless running.

I was afraid I would stub my toe, or get rocks in my feet. The gravel was warm, and rocky, but the rocks felt like beads, and my feet actually felt like they were getting a massage. I had to hold my body differently to protect the balls of my feet, and I felt my tailbone tuck under, my core engage, everything aligned. It was like having a yoga adjustment in shoulder stand pose. I had muscles working that don't normally work to keep my weight perfectly balanced on top of itself.

"In shoes, the tendency is to lean forward" John said "causing runners to recruit their quads too much of the time".

I felt grateful to have a teacher. We only ran barefoot for 5 minutes, but when it was time to put our shoes back on, my feet felt like they were being confined after a lifetime of freedom. I wanted to take them off again right away. "Give it time" John said. "You need to ease into it. You have been wearing shoes every day of your life. Your feet are not strong enough to handle much more than 5 minutes....yet".
I knew this was only the beginning.

Barefoot Pasta Salad
1 box quinoa pasta shells
1/2 tsp salt
water
Cook the pasta in boiling salty water for 8-9 min. In the meantime, slice into a bowl:
1 cup sliced cherry tomatoes
1/4 large yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup cubed feta cheese
When the pasta is done, drain the water out, and add olive oil and garlic to the empty pasta pan (return to the heat). Add a pinch of salt and pour the pasta back into the pan. Toss in the greens and stir for 1 min. Remove from the heat and pour into an empty bowl. Let cool.
2 cups baby spinach/ arugula mix
2 cloves minced purple garlic
3 Tbsp olive oil
Mix together the two bowls of ingredients. Dress with the below ingredients. Serve warm or cold.
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Christina's vote: "Substantial and damn good"

Kohlrabi-Potato Trance Salad

I have vague memories of opening my eyes and seeing the smeared blue and white open sky, glowing with red, then pink, then yellow. Each time I blinked I exited a dream and entered a slightly different sky. My eyes were too heavy to stay in the expansive day clouds for long, and before I knew it my alarm was screaming angrily for the fourth time. I shut it off and lay still, staring up at the ceiling, which tipped from side to side as though I were recovering from twirling in circles. It felt good to be exhausted, and I gave myself ten minutes to revel in it.

I was still in a dream like trance when I left the house, which might be why it wasn't until after I hit the Caribou that I realized that I was still wearing my house slippers. No one said anything to me as I ponied up to the register wearing black pinstriped work pants, a pink polo, and brown slippers, or if they did snicker at me, I was too preoccupied to notice. My mind was completely wrapped in figuring out when I was going to fit in a car appointment. When I got back to my car I began thinking about where I was going to park and how long it was going to take me to get from the back of the lot to my office. That's when I noticed that my toes were bare, and I exited the highway to turn back home to switch shoes.

I remembered how my Hungarian professor showed me her slippers behind the door of her office. She confessed that she had been so preoccupied with a class she was teaching that she had forgotten her shoes that morning. I looked at her and thought, 'wow, that is crazy. That would never happen to me.'

Now here I was. A shoe neglect-or. A preoccupied woman, who's mind is never really here nor there, but somewhere in the clouds. It's not one thing that I am fixated on. It's everything. It's running, and writing, and salad. It's BDNF, energy metabolism, and farmers marketing. It's radio, autism, and kettle bells. It's family, errands, and finances. It's life, and it feels good to be totally consumed by it, to be digested and absorbed into nature's circulatory system.

Perhaps it was preoccupation that caused me to dump too much dill into this salad. I suggest that if you decide to try this at home, you use less dill... 1/4 cup chopped fine, or use dried dill instead of fresh. The concept worked well (using the kohlrabi instead of potato) and will lower the calorie count of your potato salad.

Kohlrabi Potato Salad
2 medium red potatoes, cubed
3 small purple kohlrabi, peeled and cubed (can use green)
1/8 tsp salt
Put the above ingredients into a pot of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil, uncovered, for about 16 min. Taste to make sure texture is desired (kohlrabi should still have a little crunch).
Drain water out and place mixture in a bowl. Heat 2 cloves minced garlic in about 1/2 Tbsp olive oil and 1/4 tsp salt. Before the garlic browns, pour over the potatoes and kohlrabi. Place the bowl in the freezer for about 10 min so that everything cools off before doing the next step.
Mix together with:
1 cup diced green onions
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped (use less if you prefer)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/4 tsp lemon pepper (or 1/4 tsp pepper and some lemon zest)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Christina's vote: "This salad was like finding a potato in a haystack"

The Joy of New Ingredients Salad

This morning I discovered a new ingredient, and I was inspired. It was like meeting a new and interesting friend. New friends speak their own language. The nuances of their meaning are unfamiliar to me, I am forced to listen with an attentive ear, and watch with an observant eye.

Going into our introduction, all I knew about soy lecithin was that it was an emulsifier, meaning that it would hold together my oils and vinegars keeping them in one beautiful fluid mixture. What I hadn't comprehended was large difference this would translate into for a ginger vinaigrette.

Vinegar and tamari suspended in thousands of tiny droplets of oil would now be delivered individually to each taste bud, dropped like rain onto a leaf. Slowly, the droplet breaks open, and subtle pieces of mint, ginger, and lime pierce the tongue, like snow pierces cheeks.

The flavors amazed me. I stood in my kitchen, thrilled with the creation, not my creation, but nature's. Like a kid with a paint by number piece I wanted to show everyone what I had done. I felt certain that this dressing would bring me glory. For the first time ever, I began to fantasize about bottling my dressings and selling them.

Jesse woke up and walked into the kitchen wearing his flannel pajamas. His hair stood straight up and his eyes were puffy and pillow creased. He towers over the tops of the cabinets, but he has a childlike softness in his voice.

"Good morning Emily"
"Good morning Jesse"

This is my sign that it is late, and time for me to go to work. I put the dressing and the salad into the fridge, then left the scene.

I kept thinking about my dressing company all day. Christina would do all the design, naturally, and handle the business end. I would do the recipes and the advertising. I rushed home, excited to play with soy lecithin some more. When I opened the fridge and took out the dressing, I was a little disheartened by the goo staring back at me. It was a classic case of too much of a good thing placing the cart before the horse.

Ah, well, if you make this dressing at home (and I still highly recommend it), you may want to ease up on the soy lecithin and not store it in the refrigerator.

Ginger Mint Lime Dressing
3/4 Tbsp soy lecithin granules
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1/2 Tbsp wheat free tamari (or regular tamari)
1 tsp ume plum vinegar
1 tsp lime juice
1 Tbsp fresh ginger mint
pinch salt
zest from 1 lime
2 tsp water (if dressing is too thick)

The Salad
2 cups mixed local greens (mustard greens would be good with this salad too)
2 cups chopped fresh pea pods (try to get some really fresh crunchy ones)
1 cup diced purple cabbage
Pulp from 1/2 lime (optional. this will cause the cabbage to bleed, but it really enhances the flavor of the salad)

Christina's vote: "This salad pleased me"

Cucumber Car Salad with Queen Bee Dressing

I walked down the farmers market aisle, clutching my list and rehearsing my cucumber factoids.

'before the invention of thermoses, cucumbers were used as a water source for people crossing the desert' 'cucumbers originated in India over 3000 years ago' 'cucumbers are technically a fruit, and are members of the melon family' 'the inside of a cucumber is about 20 degrees cooler than the air temperature due to the vegetable's thick green skin'

I imagined, not just the words, but the inflection in which I would say them. I kept bumping into people, then apologizing. It's funny how, with minimal stress, I can talk on the radio every week, appear on television, speak in front of hundreds of adults in an auditorium, lecture college students in a classroom, but schedule me to do a vegetable demonstration in front of a bunch of 5-10 year olds and I completely panic.

"What is the matter with you? You look totally preoccupied right now." Christina said, as a sat at my desk chair staring into space. She was being nice, I looked catatonic.

"I have no idea what I am going to do tomorrow for my little locavores demo at the farmer's market."

All afternoon ideas had been sailing in, then floating away. Now it was evening, and I still felt totally lost. Sometimes I wish I had a magnifying glass which would magically focus my energy to a single point where it would ignite something useful. In a moment of panic, I sent out a call for suggestions on facebook. On a Saturday night, you can always count on grad students to be at their computers.

'Make cucumber cars with tomato wheels' someone wrote.

Perfect.
I started looking up cucumber facts late last night, then rehearsed them at the farmers market in the morning. I was so busy rehearsing that I almost completely missed the cage of bees sitting in front of the honey stand. Out of the corner of my eye they looked frightening, but then again I am afraid of anything in large numbers. For example, I find one bunny to be adorable, but a thousand bunnies in mass movement, grooming themselves and thumping their paws: terrifying. I stopped to look at the bees more closely. They were climbing in and out of perfect little wax hexagons grooming their legs and twitching their antennas. I realized that I have never bothered to wonder how it is that they can create honeycomb built of such perfect geometric shapes.

"The queen is on the other side" Michael, the honey vendor said. I walked over and looked at the other side. Identical bees were scattered everywhere, but one bee was surrounded by a cluster of about 10. She had a yellow dot on her back.
"That's the queen." He said.
"What are they doing to her?" I asked.
"Mostly grooming her and getting rid of her waste. It's not as great of a gig as it seems for the queen. Sure, she gets waited on, but her entire job is to produce eggs. As soon as she starts to fail at that, the rest of the bees kill her."
"How do they kill her?"
"Cuddle death, they smother her and she dies from the heat."
"wow, now that's a lot of pressure"
Suddenly my demo didn't seem so scary. It's not as though a swarm of children were going to kill me if I fail to entertain them..or, would they?

Chopped Cucumber Car Salad
10 small pickling cucumbers, peeled and diced
1 1/2 cups diced pea pods
1 cup chopped mixed greens
radishes (or tomatoes)

Queen Bee Dressing
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp champagne vinegar
1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
lemon zest
1/2 Tbsp raw honey
1/2 Tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

Christina's vote: "I needed a shovel for this salad"

Breath Freshener Tabouli

"Emily, what are you doing home?" Jesse swung his large, blond head around the corner, wrapping one hand of fingers against the wall. I turned the corner and the rest of the picture filled in. He held a vacuum cleaner his right hand, but the rest of his body was.. "JESSE PUT SOME CLOTHES ON" I yelled. Jesse, who had apparently forgotten that he was talking to me, was now standing and smiling, humming strange noises and caught in some autistic paradise of mental obsession.
"JESSE!"
"What?" he looked at me, with wide eyes, mirroring back my surprise.
"PUT SOME CLOTHES ON BEFORE YOU VACUUM" I said.
"OH NO, I CAN"T!!! Chris said I needed to vacuum the cat sand up in the bathroom before I take my shower. I have to do what Chris said. I'm gonna listen to Chris. Gonna listen to Chris. I'm gonna listen to Chris now." He repeated, as though he were coaching himself.
"Jesse" I said, more calmly. "She didn't mean you had to literally vacuum immediately before taking your shower. You could keep your clothes on, vacuum, and then get ready for your shower. Please put something on now."
"Can I wear my snuggie?" he asked. Not being entirely sure what a snuggie was, but assuming it was some article of clothing I agreed, then I went into the office to work on my computer.

I heard the vacuum going, then it shut off. Jesse came flying into the room, wearing what looked like a long flowing blue robe which came up high on his neck and hung long in the arms, covering half of his hands. With his 6 foot 4' frame, scruffy chin, and wavy ear-length blond hair, the robe made him look like a clergyman or a painting of one of the 12 disciples of Jesus.

"LIFE IS JUST A SERIES OF ADJUSTMENTS" he stated. I looked up at him, surprised by his profound philosophy.
"What?" I questioned.
"LIFE IS JUST A SERIES OF ADJUSTMENTS" he repeated, then continued, "I THINK THEREFORE I AM. WATER WATER EVERYWHERE BUT NOT A DROP TO DRINK" He boomed.
"Jesse, where did you hear that stuff" I broke into a laugh. "From George Ferrata in Winona. George died from eating too much fatty food." Jesse said, matter of fact, then he turned around and glided back into the bathroom, unmindful of the fact that his backside was completely bare.

Today I came home to find a fully clothed Jesse. I had been working at the farmers market, helping Bonnie Dehn (Minnesota's herb lady) do a pesto demo. She gave me some pesto with fresh garlic to take home, and I had eaten quite a bit of it for lunch. "Hi Jesse" I said.
"Emily, come in here I want to show you what I did." I followed him into his room. He had marshmallows sitting on his bookshelves, with toothpicks in them and gumdrops stuck to the toothpicks.
"They're water molecules!" He said, proudly.
"Jesse, I think you have a few too many hydrogen's on this one" I said, holding up a marshmallow with 4 toothpicks sticking out. He held his hand over his nose, and looked uncomfortably at me.
"Geez, that's some breath Emily. I think your breath stinks" He sounded apologetic. "You want some gum?" he asked.
"Sure Jesse, thanks" I said, laughing. This is when I decided to make a parsley salad, because parsley is supposed to get rid of bad breath.
It's fun having Jesse around.

Breath Freshener Tabouli
2 cups cooked bulgar
3 cups parsley
1 cup cherry tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, diced
1/4 cup oil that the sun dried tomatoes was in
salt and pepper to taste.

Christina's vote: "This salad made me think I should eat sun-dried tomatoes every day"

Sun Run Salad

I felt my lungs expand and contract, like large wings flapping against my rib cage. I opened my heart to set them free, and suddenly my legs were ignited. They moved like pistons, taking cues from one another, one up one down. With this new source of power, I was free to sit back and steer. The wide city roads were empty, and the air was damp and warm like a Florida morning. A giant red sun tracked over my right shoulder. It jumped out from behind the buildings, as though we were children in a forest, and it were surprising me from behind trees. I wanted to stay out and play with the sun until he was called home to bed, but I knew that soon the people would come out and he would retreat up into the sky like a shy drummer, who plays his powerful music hidden from glory. For a moment, I wished that I could live my whole day with the dawn.

I wondered if this is what mothers feel when their children grow up. It is difficult not to get attached to the pinks and whites of morning, but if spend all my thoughts missing them then I know I will miss the yellows and blues of the afternoon.

All day long, underneath a yellow and blue sky, I remind myself not to surrender to fear. I remind myself that as long as my heart is open, my body will align itself, pistons beneath shoulders, feet beneath pistons. I feel the explosive energy, miraculous like the red morning sun. It comes through the opening of my heart.

Hazelnut Apple Balsamic Vinaigrette
3 tsp apple infused balsamic vinegar
1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp hazelnut infused olive oil
1 Tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tsp raw honey
1/2 tsp dry yellow mustard powder

Radish Pea Salad
1/2 head red leaf lettuce, chopped
10 radishes, sliced
1 1/2 cups chopped pea pods

Christina's vote: "This salad reminded me of gifts I never gave."