Great Green salad

Without the slightest bit of lady façade tinting this statement with falsity, I want to aver that I love a good salad. I really, truly do. I like messy "kitchen sink" salads, what I like to call compost salads. Those are the sorts crafted by tossing in a deep bowl (spills are annoying), all manner of vegetal flotsam found in your crisper drawers with any grains, nuts, fruits, meats, cheeses and dressing you fancy and then flipping the result onto a plate or into a generously-sized bowl (see above parenthetical note for the why). Serve with warm bread if you like, perhaps some hummus or dipping oil too. Enjoy.

I also appreciate a composed salad though I don't often make them just for me because really, who has the time? As well, I want to enjoy my food and, especially at lunchtime for the love, if making it requires too much in the way of preciousness or crafting, the pleasure-factor is diminished. Not always, but you get my drift.

I like pasta salads and grain-based salads, fruit salads and warm salads. I like leftover salad too, unless you start with the wrong sort of lettuce in which case the leftovers aren't nicely marinated but instead remind me too much of the stems of flowers that have been in a vase for a week: slimy, smelly, yuk.

And I enjoy experimenting with the ways various ingredients can come together in salad form.

Today, I craved a fresh, unique salad. I'm -gasp- the slightest bit tired of tomatoes and regular old lettuce. So I poked around and found half a head of the always-beauitful Savoy cabbage; two heads of sweet Belgian endive which I adore for its crunchy, vaguely bitter, delicate flavor; some Persian cucumbers; and some scuppernong grapes*. I immediately chose all of that plus some Parmesan, a Meyer lemon, walnut oil and fresh walnuts which I immediately toasted so that they could cool while I made the salad.

I adore cabbage but I wanted it to be part of the team here. As such, I sliced it into paper-thin slivers to match rather than overwhelm the texture and taste of the endive. I didn't peel the cucs because A) peel = fiber and other good stuff, and B) I like texture and color and cuc peel adds both. I quartered the grapes both because they are large and I wanted to do the seeding work in advance of indulging in this lovely salad-to-be.

The dressing was made by the simple whisking together of two tablespoons of walnut oil, the juice of half that Meyer lemon, salt and freshly ground pepper. Using a vegetable peeler, I shaved Parmesan feathers over the top, dressed the salad and let it sit for a few minutes so the flavors could diffuse and marry. This hit the spot completely!

*Scuppernongs are a large variety of the muscadine, a grape that has a thicker-than-usual skin, three to four seeds, hails from the southern US and is worth every bit of the effort required to -oh my!- eat a grape with seeds. Scuppernongs (and muscadines) aren't available all year but are in season now. Try some! You won't be sorry!

To read more about scuppernongs (because really, isn't it fun to say their name?), read this Garden & Gun article, if only for the stunning photo.

Allergies, the elderly and stop signs, Forbidden Island

Allergic to what?

Friends, after sixty kinda-pricks today during my first-ever appointment with an allergist, I found that in addition to dust mites and pigweed, I'm somewhat allergic to cockroaches which, for your additional disgust, are grouped in the molds category.

Apparently, lots of people are allergic to cockroaches (order: Blattodea or, alternately, Blattaria; aren't those gross names just perfect? They must derive from the sound a roach makes upon being squished by a freaking-out woman or the person (in my case, my father or T) she's called in frantically to do her bidding) and their nasty, moldy, crunchy, spurty, filthy selves). My allergist blamed my reaction on having grown up in Louisiana; there are that many there, of both the flying and solely locomotive types. Perhaps my geographic heritage also explains my slight reaction to oak trees and sweet gum trees, though those results made me awfully sad and I refuse to acknowledge them.

I mean, what, pray tell (other than a Redwood but they don't speak to me in the same way), is grander and more awe-inspiring than a century-old Live Oak in Louisiana? Very, very little. At least in the tree kingdom. Maybe a baobab, but I digress.

Although I miss much about Louisiana, I do not in any way miss cockroaches. They are a repulsive scourge with no reason for being. Like mosquitoes, but much uglier and creepier.

But anyway, dust mites. Now I've gotta encase all my pillows, mattresses and such, BUT doing so will reduce my exposure to those buggers by 30% (or so I'm told), so maybe that's one less experience with Hitler-chap and man-voice than I currently plod through each year. I'll take it.

The elderly and driving

Y'all, I loved my Nanny more than most folks, and I've always treasured the many, many older people in my life whom I'm lucky to call friends. But I simply must say that north of seventy, most people need to relinquish their driver's licenses. It would be a full time job for me to accurately tell you how many older peeps I see blowing through stop signs every day. Stop signs are NOT suggestions, y'all. They are simple visuals to relay one simple message: STOP.

I have a great-aunt who drove through the front windows of a Cold Stone Creamery; she was certain she should retain her license. I regularly see l'anciennes driving more slowly than Nutmeg strolls, weaving over the land dividers and back with not a care in the world. This is dangerous, friends, dangerous.

You don't, at a certain age, say Happy Birthday to yourself by deciding you no longer need to follow the rules of the road. I'm just saying.

Great game for 7+-year-olds and dinner

The boys ate nearly a pound of ground beef in hamburger form for dinner. Plus broccoli, peaches, milk, buns... It's really UNbelievable how much males can consume. That's all good though; it just takes me aback sometimes.

More interestingly, before dinner, Jack and I played a new game: Forbidden Island. All players are on the same team, and the goal is to acquire the four treasures and helicopter off the island before it sinks in flooding waters. I admit to being on the edge of my seat at one point while Jack drew "flood" cards. Would we survive? Would we have time to procure the Chalice of the Earth before flying to safety?

I highly recommend it. Made me Gamewright, a Mensa select ... T got home and we grilled pizza and cooked yet another plum tart.

Hubs has just wooed me with an episode of House of Cards. I'm off!

Favorite farro salad

Y'all have got to try this salad. It is one of my favorite creations! Farro with gold beets, spiced pecans, feta and chive-sage oil dressing. Unreal! It sings of freshness and fall. The farro is both chewy and tender, the chives are the main vocals while the sage sings back-up. The gold beets both glow and add a sweet, earthy nuttiness. The interplay of cayenne and maple syrup atop the pecans is sublime. And the feta lends a creamy tang that makes the whole even better.