Salad is good. But what’s this prickle of shame I feel when I say it?
I want to show you food that wets the tongue, that tickles the groin. Rich, lush, ecstatic food. And I know that this may not be it, that it’s hard to do belly cartwheels for a garden salad. Still, I love them, and like any stubborn affair of the heart, it troubles me a little. Because for me–and maybe not only for me–salad seems a fairly potent symbol for the failure of female desire.
Did that come out of left field? Sorry reader. I know you don’t just write sentences like that, not about salad, and then you certainly don’t leave them like that, orphaned at the end of a paragraph. Except on days like this. Finesse-less days. I mean hungry days.
I love to watch men eat. I love the big bite, the gutsy chew, the hungry swallow, the finger lick, the sad sigh of an empty plate. And I love to watch a woman eat, if she knows how feed her hunger. But nothing makes me sadder than to watch a hungerless woman poke joylessly at her rabbit lunch. So suffice it to say that I feel a little implicated, maybe a little regretful, that this is the sixth salad I’ve posted here.
But I must also say that this salad is not that hunger-mocking salad. And that woman–knock on wood–is not, will never be, me. This salad is punishing: spicy, crunchy, mean. The kick comes from some pretty insane tasting wild arugula: not the limp, sterile prewashed stuff from the produce section. Instead, a dirt-caked, borderline weedlike vegetable that’s furry, fibrous and nose-burningly spicy. And cruel and intense and heartbreakingly good.
Otherwise, you’ll find your standard, thoughtfully thrown-together, celebrate-the-season deal in your salad bowl. Green and wax beans, roasted almonds, sheep’s milk cheese, a fine shallot dressing and some Cranberry beans that seduced me with their Jurassic Park shells.
This isn’t one of those sad salads that makes satisfaction seem a cruel, unfunny joke. Well, maybe. We ate this salad frenzied. There wasn’t enough of it. We left hungry. But reader, you know as well as I do that there are worse ways to eat, worse ways to live.
Summer Bean Salad
Ingredients:
– 1 bunch wild arugula, cleaned and roughly chopped
– 1 lb mixed summer beans: green, wax, cranberry, lima, etc.
– 1 handful roasted unsalted almonds, roughly chopped
– Shaved cheese, manchego or similar. I used a Spanish sheep’s milk.
– Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
Dressing:
– 1 medium-sized shallot, finely chopped
– 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
– 3/4 tsp Dijon mustard
– 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
– 1/2 tsp sugar
– Kosher salt
– Fresh ground black pepper
Directions:
Make the dressing. Whisk shallots, vinegar, mustard, olive oil, sugar together in a small bowl. Season to taste with salt in pepper. Set aside. Blanch the beans. Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil, and cook green beans and wax beans for four minutes. Once cooked, shock the beans in salted cold water. Remove the beans, once cool, to a separate bowl. Shell cranberry beans and cook in same pot for ten minutes. Shock and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine beans, arugula, almonds and dressing. Toss thoroughly. Shave a generous helping of cheese over the top with a vegetable peeler. Season with salt and pepper, toss again, and serve.
You are an amazing writer “orphaned at the end of the paragraph” is so in the moment, editorially speaking. But I do gotta ask– do you get upset by women who joylessly poke at their lunch consisting OF rabbit or better suited FOR a rabbit? I’m just teasing ‘cuz the beauty part is either interpretation adds a depth of nuance. GREG
What a lovely post – and about salad! Who would’ve thought it could inspire such words?
What a great post… Totally captivated by the writing…. And the Salad of course. This is one to make! Simple, fresh, green and good for you 🙂
Just the kind of salad the dog days of summer call for! (Why do we like spicy and wild when it is so spicy and hot outside???) Great post!