No Need For Dressing Salad

"Emily, how are you?" Tammy said, as she dropped off a bag of completely foreign looking greens. It's not often that somebody outdoes me at picking obscure produce, so I was very excited about MCing Tammy's demo at the farmers market. Tammy is the owner and chef at Rainbow Chinese restaurant. Everybody at the market knows and loves her. As an outsider coming in to the community, I had always just assumed that this was because Tammy walks around feeding everybody. That was before I had tried her cooking. Tammy, doesn't just make food, she performs alchemy.

"You will help me today, right?" Tammy asked. This I was also excited for. Tammy helped me with my first ever demo, the one where I cut my finger and had to cook with a giant bandage on my hand in front of a large crowd. She stood behind me and executed my recipe with elegance and skill as though she had done it a hundred times.
"Of course I will" I responded. "How can I help?"
"Pick off these basil leaves" She responded, and handed me a bunch of Thai basil. Tammy worked next to me, on a batch of sweet potato leaves. She kept asking me questions, and methodically picking off the leaves as though prepping with me were her sole reason for being there today.

Vines, fruits, and flowers covered the entire stainless steel table where we were setting up. She had giant daikon radishes that looked like white swords, globes of light green cucumbers, warty looking bitter melons, tangles of sweet potato vines, and dark purple carrots. It was exactly the sort of set up I would love to have, but at the last minute I always seem to chicken out and grab a couple of modest ingredients that I think people will be more comfortable with.

"Do you have a set of knives here?" Tammy asked, looking me directly in the eye while julienning some carrots with impeccable speed and precision. She chopped Asian style, by slicing straight down as opposed to rocking her knife. I hope someday to acquire her level of skill. She told me that she has been the chef at Rainbow for over 20 years. When I told her she didn't look old enough for that to be true, she told me it was her fathers idea to open the restaurant. I wonder if Tammy had grown into her love for cooking, or if her father had recognized her passion and insisted that she have a venue. I suspected the latter.

"I am going to make a couple of dishes for you today that I don't have on my menu. This is fancy food, not every day Chinese food." She said into her microphone, as she tossed a large handful of potato leaves into a wok. Everyone laughed, and she looked up and smiled. "no really, it is. Trust me." Potato leaves only cost a dollar at the market, only because most people have never tried them and don't know how to use them. They are rich and decadent with a meaty flavor similar to artichokes.

I could go on for hours about the fun I had today, but instead I will stop here and feed you with this simple salad featuring some local fresh produce from the market.

No Need For Dressing Salad
2 of your favorite heirloom tomatoes
2 unique varieties of cucumbers
1 small bunch of basil (about 1/2 cup chopped)
drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Christina's vote: "This conjured memories of Persian rummy in Iran"

Sweet and Toasty Quinoa Salad

I arrived during a storm, just in time to see the ship come in from a day of sailing. She was crafted of wood, with a broad beam and a high bow, and she was to be my future home. Her sails hung loosely over the boom, having not yet been properly furled. A band of sailors were positioned all over the deck. They wore red, orange, or yellow foul weather gear, and they stuck out against the rain haze. The ship inched toward me, and I prepared to catch her lines. The smell of damp wood saturated my nostrils as the rain poured over the rotting docks. This was the smell I would come to love as home.

As soon as the lines were tied, and passengers were unloaded, I boarded the ship and was introduced to the crew. The current cook, whose position I would be taking over, was sitting on a cabin box pulling slowly on a cigarette and eyeing me with scrutiny. He had deep wrinkles on his face, and curly black hair that had not yet turned fully gray. He was the sort of man to sit with his legs crossed while he smoked, yet despite his loose wrists and his casual appearance, I soon learned that he had a temper which could chase a bear away from her cubs. We called him Crunch, though I never did learn why he was given that name.

Crunch wore dentures, which he often forgot to put in before he scurried up on deck to rage at the interns. This caused the crew to giggle, which only enriched his rage and lengthened the show. Crunch drank whiskey, and whined into the evening hours about why he couldn't stop his pursuit of oblivion. Crunch claimed to have spent 9 years in a Thai prison, though sailors are known to be storytellers.

The only one of Crunch's stories that I was relatively sure was true, was that he had a son who is a famous ballet dancer in New York. I could see the love he had for his son when he talked about him, which was rare but beautiful.

It's raining outside today, and the temperature and the humidity have reminded me of my first days on the ship, and of Crunch. I am wondering where he ended up. Rumor has it he signed on to another ship and eventually went AWOL somewhere in Canada, but then, sailors are known to be storytellers.

Crunch cooked everything in toasted sesame oil.

Sweet and Toasty Quinoa Salad
Heat 1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil and add 1 1/2 cups quinoa. Toast the quinoa until it starts to brown a little. Add 3 cups water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer (covered) until all the water is absorbed.

In the meantime, cook the veggies:
1 medium green and white striped zucchini
2 small paddy squash
3 medium orange and purple carrots (or just plain orange)
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
Heat olive oil in a frying pan, so that it coats the bottom. Add a pinch of salt. Add 1/2 of your zucchini/squash/carrot mixture and 1/2 of the garlic. Lightly cook, so that the outside starts to get soft (al dente). Remove from the heat and place in a salad bowl. Put the bowl on ice. Repeat this until all your zucchini/squash/carrots are cooked (You really can't cook it all at once, because it will turn out mushy).

After the zucchini/squash/carrot mix has been removed, add
1/2 large, diced, sweet vidalia onion to the pan. Saute in olive oil and salt until the outside is a little brown.

Remove zucchini mix from the ice and drain the excess liquid that has sweated out. Mix the quinoa into the zucchini mix. Add a little
chopped basil. Toss in
1 Tbsp ume plum vinegar.
Serve warm or cold.

Christina's vote: "This salad made me want to dive in after my fishing pole"

Warm Heart of the Summer Salad

"Here is your batch of veggies for the week, we grew 5 different varieties of basil for you" I grabbed the bag with the crook of my arm and propped it against my hip as though it were an infant. I could feel the soft greens through the bag, and the hefty zucchini and cucumbers shifted their weight as I tightened my grip.
"It smells really fruity, what is that?" I asked.
"Oh, that's one of the types of basil" said woman, with a wink. She was short and tan and had dirt stained hands and thick calves. She is my CSA farmer. As I got into my car, I began to brainstorm the ways in which I would use the basil. Every avenue of ideas that I took seemed to end up at tomatoes, but I knew that we had only a few cherry tomatoes at home. I envisioned our refrigerator. After closing my eyes I could see it. There was the little light at the top. There was a greasy line-up of condiments in the door, and the bag of protruding calcium chews that I always forget to eat. There were cheeses and bagels and bottles of water. The shelves were smooth and white.

It occurred to me that there was an awful lot of white space in my mental image of our refrigerator, which means that our fridge is nearly empty. I have been too busy to shop. Luckily, I remembered the potatoes and pole beans in the crisper. The salad started to build. I would cook it in stages, each vegetable would be subjected to heat and either garlic or onion. The oil would be cooked in with the food, the vinegar sprinkled on at the end. I got home and started vigorously chopping zucchini. "Could I use Kleenex as a diaper?" Jesse had come to sit at the table and keep me company while I cooked.
"No Jesse" I knew what was coming next.
"What would happen?"
"Jesse, you are 36 and much to old to wear diapers"
"What would happen if I wore Kleenex as a diaper?"
"People would have quite a shock"
"Would I go to jail?" I didn't answer. Jesse likes to talk about the things that might put him in jail. It's like he is affirming where his boundaries are. Just as I was about to give in and answer, he surprised me by shifting his focus.
"What are we having for dinner?" He asked.
"Zucchini salad." I replied, cheerfully.
"What's zucchini?" Jesse asked. Christina whizzed behind me and stopped at the cutting board, popping a piece of raw zucchini in her mouth. "Try some"
"Hey, don't eat that raw" I said.
"Why not?"
"Cause it is meant to be eaten cooked." I replied, trying to assert myself but realizing the ridiculousness of the statement.
"I like it raw, like cucumber."
"Yeck!" Jesse said, after eating a piece of raw squash. "I'll just have a cheese sandwich"
Christina shouted after him as he got up from the table and walked away "Wait until it's cooked Jesse and try it again"

Warm Heart of the Summer Salad
1 medium green and white striped zucchini
1 medium green zucchini
1 medium yellow summer squash
2 small paddy squash
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
Heat olive oil in a frying pan, so that it coats the bottom. Add a pinch of salt. Add 1/3 of your zucchini/squash mixture and 1/3 of the garlic. Lightly cook, so that the outside starts to get soft (al dente). Remove from the heat and place in a salad bowl. Put the bowl on ice. Repeat this 3 times, until all your zucchini is cooked (You really can't cook it all at once, because it will turn out mushy).

In the meantime, boil a pot of water and add
4 small diced Yukon gold potatoes
When they are tender (about 15 min) drain the water and set aside.

After the zucchini is cooked, add
1/2 large sweet vidalia onion to the pan,
cut into large pieces. Saute in high heat in olive oil and salt until the outside is a little brown. Add
1 cup diced pole beans (they look like green beans but they are more lumpy and have a nutty flavor).
Pour potatoes on top. Season with a little olive oil, pepper and salt.

Remove zucchini from the ice and drain the excess liquid that has sweated out. Mix the potato mixture into the zucchini. Add a little
chopped basil and some sliced cherry tomatoes for garnish. Toss in
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar.
Serve warm or cold.

Christina's vote: "Wild taste"

Sweet and Spicy Rice Salad

Being new at a job is is both sweet and spicy. The days fly by, but every moment you are completely engaged. At the end of the day your mind feels saturated. It is only once you begin to wind down that you notice how your hair was out of place and your shirt was wrinkled. All day long you were bounced from one person to the next, learning this thing from that person and that thing from this one. People talk down to you when they are feeling particularly full of ego, but you know better than to take it personally and soon they feel embbarrased and apologize. The best thing to do is to enjoy it, the difficult times never last, and soon the challenge of the day becomes finding new ways to approach a comfortable task. Own your insecurities, but challenge yourself not to be limited by them. Speak your mind, but know that you have a tall ladder to climb before you have a full view of what is actually going on. Above all, stay active, and do not let yourself feel badly about not knowing everything. You are here to learn, so get comfortable being uncomfortable and enjoy the ride. When you get home, make yourself a nice bowl of sweet and spicy rice salad.

Leftover rice salad
1 cup long grain white or brown rice
Rinse rice 5 times before cooking according to instructions on package. Add 1-2 Tbsp oil to the cooking water and 1/4 tsp salt.
1 cup cooked garbanzo beans
3 medium orange carrots, diced
2 medium white carrots, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
lemon zest
mix ingredients together.

Sweet and spicy dressing
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp grape seed oil
1 tsp muchi curry powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp raw honey
1 clove fresh garlic
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp champagne vinegar

Christina's vote: "This salad has moxie"

Tricky Moon Salad

The moon smiles down, with his unfaltering poker face. Every motion of the earth projects onto his lasting impression, and though his creviced face is fossilized and unchanging, I get a different feeling from him every time that I look.
Moon, how are you today?
Angry and alone.
How are you today moon?
Elated, I feel set free.
How are you today?
Fearful and tired. Too tired to go on. I am glad that you are here.
How are you now?
Restless.
And today, how are you?
feeling satiated and a little sleepy. Thank you for joining me.

When I was small, I leaned my head against the backseat window of our car, and noticed for the very first time how the moon sometimes steals a glance of the world during the day. I noticed how it followed us wherever we went.

I imagined the earth from the moon's perspective, and felt the presence of what some like to call God. I felt that the world was much bigger than me. I felt that the universe possessed infinite tricks, and that I might never understand them. I felt like I was a living breathing dynamic part of it all.

The moment passed. Like the remembrance of a dream I tried hard to hold onto it as it slipped away and got lost amongst the car songs and the games of mad libs.

Avocado tarragon dressing
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 tsp soy lecithin
1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp soy sauce
salt and pepper (lots of pepper)
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp raw honey
1/6 avocado, mashed
1 Tbsp water
blend all ingredients together and add some lemon zest to taste

Tricky Moon Salad
1/6 red cabbage, diced
1/4 cup red pepper
3 medium fresh carrots, cut into half moons
fresh peas, shelled
fresh pea pods
edible flowers
1/2 avocado, cubed

Christina's vote: "This salad sparkled on my tongue"

Reach and Relax Salad

"Do you just keep wearing yourself down to the point of near death so that you can feel grateful to be alive?" Christina asked, as I stood hunched over the counter after a 17 mile run. My clothes were soaking wet. My shorts clung to my thighs stinging in places where the hem had chapped my skin. My calves felt like they were being pulled back and clipped tight with clothespins. A thin layer of salt was caked on my forehead, which crinkled and cracked like glazing on a donut every time I wrinkled my brow.

"I guess so, yeah!" I replied, and then I shoved a small piece of Ulle's Honey Pumpernickel bread into my mouth. Ulle's is my new favorite bakery.

Mr. Ulle (I am guessing that is his name) is a large German man who bakes traditional German breads and pastries out of one oven, then sells them at the farmers market. His business is still small enough that he can manage all the baking himself, so the product tastes like it has been made with love. I had been standing in front of his booth for awhile that morning while I was at work. I was questioning him about his business. Every time a person lingered by he would pull out a toothpick, open up a little Tupperware container, and offer them a sample of pastry. Then he would glance sideways, and slowly pull out another toothpick and hand me one, out of obligation. I took the sample, also out of obligation, but felt bad about it. I wasn't really there to shop, technically I was working.

I confess that the only reason I bought the bread was because I felt guilty for gobbling up all his free samples. Now I was so thankful that I did. This one loaf of bread was the only morsel of pre-prepared easily digestible carbohydrate left in the house. I smeared it with salty butter and chewed it slowly until the nausea started to fade.

I forced my legs to straighten, and my calves began to unclasp releasing a tingling acidic burn which washed into the bottoms of my feet. Normally, now would be the time that I would return to my computer and get some work done, but Christina's words sunk to my heart. The pushing yourself to the limit strategy is not completed if I don't take the time to do the other half of the cycle: allow myself to fully feel grateful to be alive.

I was not particularly looking forward to sitting at my desk, so I decided to take the night off. After a hot shower I jumped giddily into bed, pulled the covers up to my neck, and cracked open a good book while moon climbed up the skies golden ladder of clouds.

Reach and Relax salad
1 small bunch baby Swiss chard
baby green leaf lettuce (or mixed baby greens)
1 cup crisp pea pods
1/4 cup shelled peas (for garnish)
edible flowers (for garnish)

Mango Sweet Onion Dressing
1 mango
1/4 medium vidalia onion
1 Tbsp grape seed or sunflower oil
1 Tbsp champagne vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp poppy seeds

In a small food processor, blend together all ingredients (except the poppy seeds. Fold poppy seeds in and adjust seasonings to taste.

Christina's vote: "This salad was worth the risk of failing a drug test (due to the poppy seeds)"

When I Grow Up Salad

The little girl sat quietly at the table, watching intently. She knew that this show was for her and her alone. None of the other kids would remember what happened today. They would later think back on this day and recall the corn dog that was the size of their head that their little brother swiped from them, or the bright pink flowers that their mother bought and then put into a vase in the kitchen, or the clown that took a balloon and twisted it into a little dog with a puffy tail. They might think of the smell of the kettle corn popping, the smoke of the bratwurst grilling greasing their hot skin while they sat at the picnic table, or the cool refreshing stream of water down the back of their throats after drinking from blue plastic bottles that their parents seemed reluctant to shell out the cash for.

It seemed the little girl was not even in the same market as the rest of the kids. She was not in a market with carnival noises and mini doughnuts. She was too busy studying, carefully, taking note of every move, to notice the fair like atmosphere. She was going to be a chef someday. She was to cook in front of audiences and she was going to do it well.

It was the same look that I saw yesterday on a little boy who had waited eagerly for the slam poetry competition to begin. He wore a black bandanna on his head, and an unstylishly stylish pair of nerd glasses. He wore a set of headphones around his neck and had a tape player in his hands, which stuck out like a black squirrel in the snow and distracted me from hearing his question when he approached the counter. I was cleaning up from the previous demo, and trying to set the stage for the poets, whom I had only just learned were coming to perform.

"Are the poets here yet?" said the small, inquisitive 11 year-old boy.

"I'm sorry, who?"
The boy looked a little upset at my response, as though fearful that they may not actually be coming.
"The poets..for the Slam poetry. Are they here yet?"I shot a glance around. His desperate voice was so sweet that I wished I could make them appear at that very moment.
"I think they are coming" I said. Soon a lanky group of 20 somethings with 1960's haircuts came sauntering in.

"Yo we are here to present you with our lyrical charm. Where do we set up." I looked at the kid, whose black bandanna matched exactly with the leader of the slam poet crew. He looked as though he wanted to jump out of his chair and tell the poets every joy and pain that has ever beaten him off course in his entire 11 years of life. It was precious.

This was the same look that I saw in the little girl, whose brown eyes lit up the moment the woman began demonstrating how to make a health shake with zucchini. She hardly blinked until the demonstration was over, at which point she gingerly approached the counter to ask the woman if she would be back next week.

Weekend Salad
In a large frying pan, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil. Add 1/4 tsp salt. Add 3 cups sliced, quartered zucchini and squash, 2 cloves minced garlic and 1 Tbsp butter. Cook until zucchini are tender and brown (if your pan is too small they won't really brown, you want just one layer of vegetables on the bottom)

Have ready 1/2 box cooked penne pasta. When the zucchini is done, mix with the pasta and add some diced basil. Dress with leftover creamy herb dressing from the Universal salad made a few posts ago. Serve warm or cold (if you serve cold, revive with some black pepper and 1 tsp red wine vinegar)

Creamy Herb dressing
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup basil
1/8 cup sorrel
4 mint leaves
1 garlic clove
1 tsp sherry vinegar

Christina's vote: "Somewhat bizarre"

Beyond the Barrier Salad

"Possibly I will need get samples so that you have some cells to analyze" said my new advisor Dr. Wang, in his thick Chinese accent. Dr. Wang has a long wizened face, and dark, kind eyes, which remind me of my grandfather. His hair is impeccably straight, and cut across in the sort of bowl haircut you might see on a small boy. He is remarkably slim, and most of his pants are too big for his belt such that the material cinches at the loops. Most often his belt is covered beneath a long white lab coat that hangs to his knees. Dr. Wang always has a spring in his step and a smile on his face, which reveals a large set of white teeth. Until he became my advisor, I didn't pay too much attention to him when he spoke at meetings. This is mainly because it was so difficult for me to understand what he was saying, both due to his accent and the complexity of the subject that he researches. As soon as I began to work for him, I started listening intently when he speaks, knowing how important it is for me to understand every detail.

"Can you show me how to do that?" I asked.
"YES OF COURSE" he said flashing a huge grin as though this were already implied in his previous comment.
"Okay, thank you" I said, and I followed the tail of his lab coat as he turned and swiftly walked down the hall.

Dr. Wang and I arrived in the laboratory wearing hairnets and booties. I carried a notebook and pen. Dr. Wang had magnifying glasses fastened around his head. His blue hairnet billowed underneath the strap of the magnifier, as though it contained a bun of hair. He looked a little like a lunch lady, and it was difficult for me not to laugh, particularly when he flipped the glasses down and his eyes bulged through the lens. We talked a little, but mostly we worked in the confines of our own language barriers.

As he reached for a tool he mentioned that he used to be a mechanic back in China. This peaked my curiosity. I remembered that he had been a medical doctor back in China before coming here. How does a person go from working as a mechanic in China, to going to medical school? I had thought that Chinese students went to medical school right out of high school. Then I got to wondering: why would someone who had been working for 8 years as a medical doctor in China want to come to the US only to go back to school for a PhD in nutrition? I decided to ask. "Dr. Wang, why did you decide to move to the US?"
"I was not happy with the political climate in China." He stated. Then he launched into his story.

"I was a little boy in China, even though both my parents were highly respected intellectuals, my family was given trouble during the cultural revolution. During middle school, my siblings and I were sent to the countryside to work in the fields. The conditions were horrible. My mother would have cried very much had she known. It was freezing and we had no electricity or running water. We had to work very hard, and live in terrible conditions. We did not know when we would be allowed to return home. After 5 years I was told that I could return home to take care of my parents, but my sister had to stay behind in the field. Eventually she got out and got her degree too, but that is another story.

After returning home, I got a job working in a factory. I worked very hard, and was able to get a good recommendation. After the end of the cultural revolution, when the university opened up, they administered a test to people who were interested in attending. Only the top 5 % were accepted. I worked very hard, and was very fortunate to be accepted. Some of my friends were not so fortunate. After medical school I worked in family practice, and in endocrinology. In 1989 there were the killings in Tiananmen Square, do you remember? That was what finally drove me to leave China. I applied for a scholarship, and the University of Minnesota gave me a full scholarship. I have been here ever since."

I stared, amazed, at the incredible phenomenon of human spirit standing in front of me. He blinked back at me through magnifying glasses, is blue bonnet crumpled onto his shoulder. Then I noticed the shiny silver, oddly patterned designer collar hanging over his lab coat. A symbol of a man determined to enjoy his life.

I had one more burning question. "Dr. Wang, do you miss the vegetables in China?"
"Oh NO!" he replied. "I have a big garden in my yard. I grow all my own Chinese vegetables." He grinned a huge grin.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to introduce you to the incredible Dr. Wang.


Frisee salad with fresh tomatoes and sweet peppers
2 cups frisee
1 sliced and diced tomato (fresh from the garden)
1 fresh orange sweet pepper

Dress with sweet Gorgonzola dressing
1 Tbsp Gorgonzola
1 Tbsp fresh basil
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp raw honey
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp grape seed oil
whisk together vigorously for about 5 min. The cheese should partially incorporate into the liquid.

Christina's vote: "A bright surprise"

Universal Connection Salad

I stood across from one of the vendors tables, at the farmer's market. His products were splayed out on table before him like a dinner waiting to be blessed. We were talking excitedly about food, and about interesting characters whom we know that are involved in the local food movement, which has recently erupted from a grassroots revolution to a mainstream ideal.

"She is sort of a travelling farm warrior, always following around the farmers and volunteering to help on their farms. She also does food photography." I said of a woman I had met recently at the market.
"No I have never met her" The vendor said. He kept talking, but I became distracted. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed an older woman watching me intently. She had dark hair, large eyes, red lipstick, and a bright white teeth. Her smile was huge, and she appeared to be really appreciating our conversation. She looked familiar, like a woman I used to work with in Minnesota. My gut gnawed at me, telling me to include her in the conversation.

"Hi, you look familiar, do I know you?" I asked the woman.
"I was just thinking the same thing about you" She said.
"Do you have a sister?" I asked, thinking of the Minnesota woman I used to work with at the co-op.
"Yes I do" she said "but she doesn't live around here, she lives in Connecticut."
My ears perked up "I am from Connecticut!" I said, "Where does she live?"
"In the Northeastern part." She said.
"oh. Then I wouldn't know her. Does she look like you?"
"No, not at all" the woman replied, in a typical sisterly fashion "She has blond curly hair and is tall. Her name is Barbara. She used to live in New Canaan."
"I AM FROM NEW CANAAN!" I said, getting excited. That must have been it. I must have seen this woman before at Starbucks or something in New Canaan. It would have had to have been 10 years ago, at least!
"Kathleen McClintock" the woman said, and she put out her hand to introduce herself. At the exact same time I had said "Emily Noble" and put out my hand.
"Whaa?? your sister is Barbara McClintock??? SHE WAS MY NEIGHBOR!!" I shouted.

The woman and I looked at each other, mystified. How strange. The look of recognition that we saw in each other was not actually from a previous connection, but as it turned out, from an important future one. Barbara is someone that I had known when I was in a particularly self destructive point in my life. I owed her some words of gratitude, and a major apology. I gave Kathleen my email address and asked her to pass it on. I left our meeting shivering at the mysterious ways that the universe keeps us connected.

Universal Connection Salad
1 cup baby Swiss chard
1 cup baby green leaf lettuce
1/2 cup diced pea pods
1 tomato, diced
1/2 English cucumber, peeled and sliced

Creamy Herb dressing
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup basil
1/8 cup sorrel
4 mint leaves
1 garlic clove
1 tsp sherry vinegar

Christina's vote: "This salad made me want to walk on my toes for 48 hours"

Simply Fruit Salad

The trail was thick with the scent of cedar, and branches hung heavy with leaves on the moss painted trees. We trotted in unison hiding from the city beneath the shady lid of the forest. It was a vacation from the scratchy, air conditioned grays and whites of the office, a little adventure in the middle of the day. My travel companions were people whom I had only just met, a middle aged man, a young research scientist, and an intern. We talked mainly out of awkwardness at first: how did you start running, where are you from, what races have you done, but it was not long before things got personal. Do you believe animals are sentient beings, how do you feel about your neighbors, what are some of the ways your belief system has changed over the years, do you feel connected to your parents, do you believe that everyone has an awareness of some sort of a God. Do you meditate?

We trotted deeper and deeper into the woods, sometimes talking, sometimes just breathing, and the path grew mossier. The air was laced with pockets of hot and cold. The two men wore 5 fingered shoes, the kind that make your feet look like they have overgrown hobbit toes. They don't provide much support, but protect the soles from rocks and gravel. The intern went barefoot, I am afraid to say, at my encouragement. That was before I gave myself a bad blister and resigned to stopping my barefoot endeavors until I am able to purchase some 5 fingered shoes. I tried to plead with her, but I had already been too convincing yesterday. She had gone home and researched barefoot running online. Now she was determined to be able to claim her first barefoot run on her facebook status. My convincing her just made it look like I didn't want to be the only one wearing shoes, and I had a moment where I needed to question whether that was in fact the case. My role in the group was not to be the 22 year old bad ass pushing the limits. My role is to be the organizer, to keep people engaged, to build a team. At work I have felt locked outside of a world that is foreign. Running is familiar to me, and runners are people I feel I can trust, once I have run with them that is.

Later that day we sat in lab meeting, the few scattered runners whose legs were splattered with dirt under their clothes amid a collection of scientists. All of us with rosy cheeks and fond memories of our sprint during the lunch hour, and our cool down banter of races to come.

Simply Fruit Salad
1/4 cantaloupe, cubed
1 cup blueberries
1 cup sliced strawberries

serve with
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp chopped mint
zest from 1 lime
juice from 1/4 lime
1 tsp raw honey

Christina's vote: "This salad made me think in stereo"

Almost Paleo For a Day Salad

ABSOLUTELY NOT.
This was Christina's response when I suggested that we switch to a paleolithic diet. "But... it will be fun and delicious..and we'll have more energy." I replied. I was trying to sound convincing, but I knew deep down that it was a bad idea. Christina sensed it and she was trying to save me from myself. I was reaching for something. A new obsession. The hope of transcendence to yet another layer of well being. In reality, the path to well being is not a path at all, but a glance inward. I experienced it when I took a moment to sit down with a bag of raw trail mix today and experience all of the sweet naked flavor of a walnut, then an almond, surrendering to my new life as a hunter-gatherer. That was before I called Christina.

"Honey, a new diet is too extreme, too expensive, and too time consuming. What is it that you are really hoping to get out of this?" Christiana said.

I thought about the walnut. Earlier in the day I had scavenged the cafeteria at work, looking for signs of something edible within the paleo diet. The only thing that fit the requirements, was a bag of raw trail-mix. It was nice not to have to make the decision, I was hungry and I ate the only thing I could. No stress, no analysis of nutrient content, cost, or health benefit. I could get used to this kind of shopping.


The paleolithic diet involves eating unsalted nuts, berries, vegetables, meats, eggs, and other fruits. Basically, you eat like a hunter-gatherer, you eat when you are hungry and not because it is mealtime, you avoid anything processed, grain, or dairy. It sounds extreme, and it is, but it also sounds practical. On the paleo diet, you are basically forced to eat actual real food, and you have social support from a whole group of people for doing it. Diets that are so extreme are like mini-communities, where like minds congregate on websites promising to take you on a pilgrimage to longevity and optimum health. Last week I met a raw foods blogger who gets 1/2 million hits on her website each month. Tempting.

In a world where billboards, restaurants, television, friends and co-workers, are all constantly selling or offering processed foods, the social support for eating real is highly appealing. Taking on the title of "Paleo" is appealing, but it puts me in the category of having a restricted diet, which usually begins and ends for me, with obsession. I pulled up to a stoplight, next to a bus with a giant advertisement for pizza. Christina was still talking on the other line. I imagined ordering a pizza, then remembered it was off limits, then immediately got sad and missed pizza. I wanted it so badly that it hurt.

Restriction obsession. The next step is overcompensation with diet acceptable treats.

"Your right" I said to Christina "I guess I just feel like I have been eating on the fly too much, and eating a lot of highly processed food. I don't need to go on a paleo diet to eat more paleo foods."

When I got to the grocery store, I shopped like a hunter gatherer. I went around the perimeter, grabbing fresh vegetables and meat. I bought fresh fish and tried to design dressings using mainly foods that could be gathered. Here is what I came up with. My cousin pointed out that corn is not paleo, so if you are eating paleo omit the corn.

Garlic Seared Tuna and Frisee Salad
1 tuna steak
2 cloves garlic
hazelnut infused olive oil
pinch salt (the salt can be omitted if you are a paleo purist)

Get a pan hot and coat the bottom with oil and salt. Sear the tuna on one side until the side turns white half way up the steak. Flip it to the other side. Turn down the heat and add the garlic to the pan, tossing it around until it yellows, but before the garlic browns remove everything from the pan. Set aside.

Mix together:
2 cups frisee
1 corn cob worth of corn (omit if you are eating paleo)
1 avocado
1 small tomato
1 small red pepper
zest from 1 lime
cut up tuna and add over top (squirt tuna with lemon juice if you prefer)

Mango Lime Dressing
In a food processor, blend together
1 ripe mango
juice from 2 small limes
1 Tbsp hazelnut infused olive oil
zest from limes
lots of pepper

Christina's vote: "This salad made me want to strip off all my clothes and run down the street screaming 'I love this woman'"

Peter Pan's Hummus Salad

Remember the days of feathered hair, high waisted slacks, and men in tight polyester pants with mustaches, when everything seemed to exist in shades of brown and yellow? Yeah, I had forgotten those days too, that is until Jesse discovered youtube.

I lay half asleep on top of the white comforter, enjoying the cool air as it swept in from the giant open windows next to the bed. Due to the arrival of Jesse, we have moved our bedroom into the office, which has a giant wall of windows. Minnesota is relatively flat, and so from our sixth floor apartment, the rest of the world drops away beneath the sill, leaving our bed floating in an expanse of sky. This morning the sky was perfectly blue, with white puffy clouds that blended in with the bedspread. I was listening to the construction going on outside, enjoying a day off from work, and marveling at how tired I must be to not feel one ounce of guilt for staying inside on such a beautiful day. The construction buzzed in a continuous loop of white noise, with the occasional beep of traffic, or a peaceful oceanic wave of a truck, and then.. 'were gonna make our dreams come truuuuuuueeee, doin' t our way'

"Jesse!" I shouted. "Could you turn it down?"
"WHAT IS IT?" He shouted over Laverne and Shirley, who sounded like they were enunciating in an auditorium and not from a computer screen in our living room.

"I said COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN?" He had already shut the volume off and now I was shouting, apparently, for no reason.

"What's the matter? Why are you shouting?" Jesse said, concerned.

"Nothing, Jesse, it's okay, I was just hoping you could leave the volume turned down."

"Okay, sure" he said.

I went back to my nest. Where was I, oh yes, oceanic trucks waves of them, and the buzzing of a motorcycle. I could smell hot dogs grilling, and I imagined the people gathering around the hot dog vendor. An island of grass is just around the corner, where the people wade across the street to vacation for their 45 min lunch breaks before funneling back to the giant towers of the financial district. I imagine myself nested in branches, swaying in the wind. I close my eyes and feel the blue sky on my eyelids, and then..

"GREAT SCOTT" The rumbly, theatrical, familiar man's voice shouts. I get out of bed, resigned to participate in the day. Jesse is sitting in front of the TV, his back to the future toys lined up in front of him. He is rocking back and forth in pure bliss. I suddenly was transported to being a kid in pajamas, watching cartoons on a Saturday morning. There was nothing better. Jesse reminded me of Tom Hanks in BIG, the body of an adult with the child like passions of his youth.

I started to make my salad, and decided to make one of the first recipes I ever learned. Hummus. It was a novelty then, in the days of one meat, one starch, one vegetable cooking, but my mother had some worldly friends who had given her the recipe. We dusted off her food processor one Saturday morning and gave it a whirl.

Hummus:
in a food processor, blend
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
3 cloves purple garlic
1 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp olive oil
optional: 1 Tbsp tahini paste (some people don't like the flavor)

Dressing (this dressing really needs the sorrel in the salad to have a full flavor)
3 Tbsp light olive oil
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp mustard powder
salt and pepper to taste

Salad:
1 small bunch sorrel
1 cup sliced radishes
1 cup sliced cherry tomatoes
1-2 cups mixed baby greens (depending on how much sorrel you have)

Christina's vote: "Delightful"

Simple and elegant cold quinoa salad

The highway was closed up ahead. Again. I sat in traffic for about a half an hour before realizing that cool air was no longer moving through my open windows. The hot sun pierced my car and baked the sweat out of the back of my legs. The smell of exhaust, and the rhythm of rolling and breaking reminded me of living on the east coast. We rarely get significant traffic in the twin cities, and as it is I have a hard time fitting everything in that I am supposed to get done in a day. My mind began to wander. How is it that I ever got anything accomplished when I lived out there? Maybe my little daily tasks aren't really as important as I think they are? Maybe the world would be just fine if I wasn't holding myself together, if I missed an important appointment, if I skipped a day of salad, if I took a day off from work, if I just sat here forever. In traffic.

I peered into the cars around me. It's funny how I always imagine that I am being watched, yet never bother to watch anyone else. A man with a black moustache driving a maroon car hit his wheel, frustrated at the car in front of him. A teenager in a beat up white accord held her cigarette out of a small crack in her window, and dragged on it as though it were a reed suspended in a lake of mediocrity, and through it she were sucking in the fresh air of independence. A few cars later an old woman gazed angrily into her rear view mirror. Her windows were fully down, and she flicked a cigarette as though it were merely a part of her, as though the ashes were chewed nails that needed to be spit out. We all rolled forward, and stopped in front of a new scene. It was like an amusement park ride, like "it's a small world after all". I settled into the show.

On this block, the buildings were all painted with murals made by children. There was a small convenience store, the clerk stood outside wearing worn pants, his hands shoved into his pockets. A large man rode down the street in a motorized chair. A large woman rode past him from the other side, also in a motorized chair. She held a little dog in her lap. I had a sudden wave of sadness. This is our future. No need to walk, if you get too unfit you can just purchase a motorized chair.

We rolled forward again. A woman hobbled down the street, her hair tied in a bandanna. She was young, but tired, like she had had enough. I imagined her getting a second wind, and filling up with the fire of life. Then I imagined myself getting a second wind. I looked at myself in my rear view mirror, and felt totally disconnected from the person staring back at me. It is interesting that I ended up looking the way that I do. Of all the bodies I could have been born with, why this one? How much of the person that I am is related to the body I inhabit?

We started to roll forward, and soon we were travelling fast enough that the buildings and cars were changing like slides. I felt my second wind blow in through the open windows.

Simple and elegant cold quinoa salad
Coat the bottom of a hot saucepan with hazelnut infused olive oil.
Add 1/4 tsp salt.
Add 1 cup quinoa (rinsed 3 times, or use the pre-rinsed variety). Toast the quinoa for about 3 min.
Pour in 2 cups water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 min (or until the water is gone and quinoa is cooked).
Allow quinoa to cool completely (I threw mine in the freezer to cool it, but we don't really have any food in our freezer so I could easily fit it in without worrying about heating things up in there).

In a separate bowl, mix 1/4 large vidalia onion (try and get one that is really sweet)
1 small bunch sorrel, chopped fine
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
3 Tbsp hazelnut infused olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.
Mix in cooled quinoa.

Christina's vote: "This salad made me feel like a food addict."

Higher Learning Salad

I have always thought of myself as a person who doesn't discriminate. I think most people do. However, all day long, we are making choices based on our previous experiences. If you were to have asked me yesterday if I was a fan of green beans, I would have shrugged and said 'They're okay I guess'. My lack of enthusiasm for them has a long history, filled with canned bean sludge and slivered almond nightmares. There was a time when I loved green beans. When I was little, I used to eat the fresh beans that my grandfather had grown in his garden. My brother and I would sit around a bowl and snap the ends off of the fresh velvety beans, crunching into the imperfect ones after we had declared them unfit for the dinner table. They were so fresh that they would cling to my tongue, and they had a crunch loud enough to drown out the sound of the television. As the years went on, I had one after the other disappointing green bean experiences, and once the memory of that delicious watery crunch wore off, I had to accept that most of the green beans I encountered were dull, limp, and starchy.

As of today, my opinion of beans has once again changed. As part of a farmer's market project I am working on, I had to come up with some sort of demonstration to do with kids using fresh vegetables. I went with making green bean "french fries", which are not actually fried, but rather raw beans placed in a little french fry container that the kids could decorate with crayons. I asked them to come up with a name for their bean snacks, and to write some information on the back that they thought would encourage other kids to try their product. They wrote things like "beans help you to see" (I told them that beans contain lutein, which is a carotenoid that may improve vision) and "beans beans good for your heart" (they didn't finish the song on the package, but we had a good laugh about it).

The idea was that the kids would realize that all of the stuff written on food packages was invented by someone who is trying to sell the product. Additionally, I was hoping to get the kids thinking about some of the finer points of the beans, so that they might like them better. I also brought along some toasted sesame oil and salt to toss the beans in, and some french dressing (because, similar to ketchup, french dressing is mostly sugar with a hint of tomato, and I thought it might be good to have in case the kids hated the green beans). As it turns out, these precautions were totally unnecessary. The beans sold themselves to the kids, and then the kids re-sold me on the beans, in their original plain form.

I bought four different varieties of beans: green, yellow, purple (which turn green when you cook them) and pole beans. The pole beans were mostly for educational purposes. I was going to use the pole beans (which have strings that you have to peel) to show the kids how historically, green beans had strings on them. I didn't imagine that these would be all that tasty, since most of the farmers who sold them insisted that pole beans are meant to be stir-fried and not eaten raw. After I pulled the string off of one during our first round of demos, a little girl reached forward and demanded I let her taste the pole bean.
"I wanna try THAT one."
"No" I said "I don't think you'll like this on..." The little girl had swiped the pole bean out of my hand and snapped a bite off of it as though it were a candy cane.
"MMMMM" she said, and her face lit up. "That one is REALLY good!"
"It is?" I said. "I mean. Yes, of course it is. See, beans taste great and can be eaten as a snack raw, so that you don't even have to ask the adults if you can use the oven." I went on with my demonstration. After all the kids left, I tasted what was to become my new favorite vegetable. The pole bean. It has the nutty richness of a soybean, but with a less pea like flavor, it has a soft velvety flesh and is less sticky than the bush snap bean variety.

While the kids all agreed that the raw beans were good by themselves, they really liked them tossed in sesame oil and salt. I made this salad with the beans that I used for today's demo.

Simply Nutty Green Bean Salad
2 cups mixed purple, green, yellow and pole beans, fresh (so that they snap)
1 cup sliced cherry tomatoes

Toss with
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
sprinkle of salt
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
pinch of sugar

Christina's vote: "All the world's a stage for this salad"

Mind Playground Salad

We were driving around the town surrounding my college, listening to music and trying to forget our impending homework. The year was 1999, but we were listening to Joni Mitchell as though she had only just been discovered, as though we were the ones who had discovered her. I pumped the pedal to match the music as we drove slowly through the crisp Massachusetts night, watching the bright stars and masking the smell of cow manure with our tobacco smoke. We pulled into the main strip of the hippy town of Northampton, and I slowly rolled my car into one of the diagonal parking spaces.

“Guys, watch this” I said, impressed with myself for the discovery which I was about to share. I rolled up the windows and changed the CD to Beethoven. I turned around to face the backseat, and looked earnestly into the eyes of the curious motley crew of college kids crammed into the seat.

“Watch carefully how the people on the street move to the beat of the music.” I turned the music up, shifted to face the front again, and hoped to God that this experiment worked for them the same way that it worked for me and that they would not think that I was crazy. One by one excited hoots came from the backseat as the music built to an apex just as a man stood up and caught a running dreadlocked girl wearing a giant knit sweater in an embrace. Your brain will match the music to the movement. It’s amazing.

The mind is a magnificent playground. Emotions like fear and anger are often physical reactions to some sort of visual stimulus that exists before the story of the emotion is ever created. An arachnophobe who spots a spider might experience dialated pupils, rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, and enhanced senses. The brain makes sense of these responses by registering them as fear, but the initial physical reaction is so rapid that it happens before they even register that there is a spider in front of them.

The messages you give your body affect your thinking. I thought about how this applies to food. When I taste lemony sorrel, as I did today, I am transported to being a kid in the garden eating clovers with my brother. When I taste soy sauce, I think of being an angsty teenager experimenting with a diet of rice eaten with chopsticks, when I taste tahini and garlic I think of college where Annie’s dressings were a staple. I taste these experiences over and over, even though the actual taste buds that first received these foods have long been gone.

Tahini dressing
1 Tbsp sesame tahini
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
½ Tbsp lemon juice
¼ tsp tamari soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 small bunch chives (about the size of a dime)
salt and pepper
pinch sugar
Place all ingredients in a small food processor and blend.

The salad
3 cups mixed red and green leaf lettuces
¾ cup garbanzo beans, cooked (or canned)
3 carrots, peeled and sliced

Christina’s vote: “This salad put me on the lookout for bunny rabbits”

Local Friends Salad

“Are you doing anything fun tonight?” asked the lab tech. He is long and lean, and always wears scrubs with nothing underneath them. Apparently he never got the memo that scrubs are supposed to go on outside of your clothes. It’s a silly ritual anyway, wearing scrubs. Christina and I often talk about it. Most people who work in a hospital setting have a collection of scrubs which they put on at home, then travel to work in. They usually hit up the coffee shop, or maybe the gas station on their way to work, then maybe again on their way home. There is nothing in particular about the scrub that is more sterile than wearing everyday clothing, so really scrubs are a sort of ritualistic uniform akin to the shaman’s garb.

“I am going to pick up our vegetables”
“What do you mean pick up your vegetables”
“We get a CSA.”
“A what?”
“It stands for Community Supports Agriculture. Basically, you invest in a share of a local farm, gambling that they are going to have a successful year. Then, you get a share of their produce. Lot’s of farms around the US participate. Ours is a farm that only grows heirloom variety vegetables, and specifically ones for salad. They are called ‘Webster Farm Organic’ (www.websterfarmorganic.com). Every Thursday the farmers come to the city and bring us our share of what they grew that week.”

“Interesting.” He said, holding one of the four jelly sandwiches that he had packed for lunch in front of him, with his elbows splayed wide on the table. “But what are you going to do for fun tonight?”

“That is fun.” I replied. He turned his head to the side, looking wary.

Meeting new people is often awkward at first, especially when you meet under circumstances which don't imply that you will necessary share similar likes, dislikes, or general world view. It's like getting vegetables from a CSA, I probably would never have chosen to buy baby mustard greens had they not come in my CSA, but now that I have tried them I find that I like them a lot.

Later that night, I pulled into the coffee shop parking lot, which contained a big green van stationed like a lighthouse next to a table filled with cloth bags of vegetables. The farmers, two smiling women with a skip in their step, stood out front handing out the bags. They saw me coming and began sorting through the bags.

“We had a great week, and I mean a great week this week!!! The rain and the sun have been just perfect. You will not believe how good everything tastes this week.” This morning, when I was making my salad, I snapped into a crisp fresh pea pod, and nearly fell over. She was right. Its like a light shell filled with sweet nectar, not at all starchy or raw in flavor. It tasted more like a fruit than a vegetable. Try this salad using the freshest local produce you can find, and tasting each ingredient before you add it to make sure that it carries a flavor that ‘gets’ you.

Champagne Hazelnut Honey Dressing
3 Tbsp Hazelnut infused olive oil
1 Tbsp Champagne vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp raw honey
¼ tsp soy lecithin
¼ tsp ume plum vinegar
salt and fresh ground pepper

Peaches and Peas Baby Greens Salad
3 cups mixed baby greens (local and fresh)
1 ½ cup diced pea pods (sugar snap or snow, fresh and local)
2 sliced peaches or nectarines (I used nectarines)
garnish with edible flowers

Christina’s vote: “this salad was gentle”

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."