Piquant

The art of simple food

Last week I picked up a used copy of Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food at my local library book sale.  It was perhaps the best and most satisfying $5 I've spent recently.

Though it isn't a new cookbook, it is indeed a delicious revolution.

The chapter I'm digging into, pardon my corny self, is Salads.

There is no meal or side dish quite so simply elegant and satisfying as the salad. When Waters writes, "I love salad. I love to wash it. I love to eat it. As far as I'm concerned, a meal withut one is incomplete," I feel as if she has channeled my thoughts exactly.

So it is with great delight and anticipation that I peruse her writings on the composed salad, the art of combining and arranging ingredients on a plate. I anticipate the mesclun and fresh herbs from my edible garden- if I can wrest them from the digging squirrels - as mainstays on many a happy plate from my kitchen.

The joy of salad making for me is the infinte variety.  From fresh seasonal vegetables and fruits to tasty roast leftover meats to slivers of nuts and cheese, there are many and diverse ways to build a lovely salad. 

Here is a recipe using one of my favorite ingredients, the beautiful beet.

Recipe: Marinated beet salad

Alice Waters, "The Art of Simple Food"

Beets of different colors make a very beautiful salad.  Dress the red ones separately so their color doesn’t bleed all over the others.

Ingredients

• 1 pound beets (red, Chioggia, golden, or white)
• Salt
• 1 teaspoon vinegar (red wine, sherry, or white wine vinegar)
• 1 to 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil.

Preparation

Trim the greens to 1/2 inch from 1 pound beets (red, Chioggia, golden or white).

Wash thoroughly. Put them in a baking dish with a little water (enough to cover the bottom of the dish to a depth of 1/8 inch) and sprinkle with salt.

Cover tightly and bake the beets in a 350°F oven until they can be easily pierced with a sharp knife, 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on their size. Uncover and cool. Cut off the tops and roots and slip off the skins. Cut the peeled beets into small wedges or 1/4-inch dice and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon vinegar (red wine, sherry or white wine vinegar) and salt.

Let stand for a few minutes to allow the beets to absorb the flavor. Taste and add more salt or vinegar as needed. Toss with 1 to 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil.

Serve alone, or with other salads.

Tips

Variations

• Substitute fresh orange juice for some of the vinegar and toss with grated orange zest.
• Toss with 1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs such as mint, tarragon or cilantro.

 

Growing your own edible garden

Growing up we were lucky to have a Mom passionate about growing food.

I didn't appreciate then the tender asparagus shoots each spring coaxed from the hard earth or the lovely ruby red raspberries prized from brambly bush.

While my friends ate slippery. soft canned vegetables, I ate a wide variety of fresh garden treats - Swiss chard, sugar snap peas, asparagus, buttercrunch lettuce and delicate squash blossoms.

I didn't know then the tasty fried squash blooms were an Italian delicacy known as Fiori di Zucca. I probably wouldn't have eaten it!

Even if you haven't much space, you can tend your own edible garden. Mine is not much more than some pots planted with herbs - basil, rosemary and thyme along with mesclun.  Soon I'll add beefsteak tomatoes, Italian green beans, garlic and zucchini.

The edible garden is more relevant than ever. Use your imagination and be inspired by your kitchen.

Don't get mad, get even

And you were worried about folk spitting in the tea?

Kansans do it dirty.  A couple recently was arrested and charged with poisoning the salsa at the restaurants where they worked. Thirty-six people, among them kids and seniors, got sick after eating the salsa laced with the Methomyl-based pesticide.

These folk don't get mad, they get even.

The lesson here? Don't piss off your server.

Strawberry season is here

I sat in my backyard this afternoon watching the chickadees flit back and forth to the feeder.  A dove stood in the birdbath, periodically dousing its wings.

The grape hyacinths are a crush of purple.  I have to finish turning the soil for a small bed devoted to Italian string beans and lay a small path of rocks to line the space where the wildfowers will be sown.

 I saw a waxy white bloom on my strawberry plants. Berries will soon be ripe and red, ready to be enjoyed. My plants are more for show than anything else. I might get a cup or two if I'm lucky and the squirrels aren't greedy. Juicy strawberries  are my favorite spring dessert.  And the cool weather means a longer strawberry season.

Most of the berries I'll use for desserts and snacking will come from local farmers.  In North Carolina,  the strawberry crop is expected to total nearly 20 million pounds, with a value of a little over $1 per pound.

That's a whole lot of berries! I'm ready.

 

Good-bye cream-filled cupcakes

Good-bye cream-filled cupcakes. Hello, carrot sticks.

If you are what you eat, then today I'm a huge cream-filled lovely. 

In a last splurge before the real discipline of eating better, which here means less of everything, but most especially less dessert, I indulged last night in my all-time favorite junk food treat, the cream-filled chocolate cupcake. 

This morning, I smugly eat my oatmeal, yet secretly desire cake.  Jamie Oliver would be proud, sort of.

Really, all you gi-normous muffin eaters know that what you really, really want when you're eating that allegedly healthy berry-packed, sugar-crusted muffin is a giant slab of buttercream frosted cake.

You're transparent as glass; squeaky shiny clean Windexed glass at that.  Otherwise you'd be eating one of those shriveled up muffins made with applesauce instead of butter that tastes like a mouthful of cedar chip from the hamster cage.

Tell the truth now.

Do you really, really want a muffin?  Or do you really, realy want cake?

This oatmeal is a poor substitute, but surely my thighs will thank me for my perseverance later.

Eat. Drink. Memory. has new recipe

It's a brand new day. And just like a clean plate baby, I want to start off with something fresh to chew on.

I'd been thinking about how my blog was a little like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man  in Ghostbusters.  Unwieldy, bloated and to me, a little tired. And maybe just a little evil too.  Evil in the sense that my lovely little blog had begun to run me.

So, I quit posting for a few months to percolate on where I'd been and where I wanted to go.

It's been more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkeys writing this blog about food, drink and travel.  I still plan to blog on the same themes, but with more emphasis on the personal connections made in these categories - less product, more people, and hopefully more fun.

I encourage you, my gentle readers, to come along for the picnic.  There's sure to be loads of good eats, great memories and, yes, the occasional product review.