a year of salad and toast

it feels apt to christen this new blog with a post about its namesake dish.

my go-to workday lunch for the past year has been salad and toast. though it sounds boring, i’ve grown more and more fond of this simple meal over the months. i like it for a few key reasons:

• it requires little to no advance planning. (caveat: this is not intended to be a relatable statement!) i purchase kale, spinach, chard, arugula, or some other leaf at least once a week. i either buy english muffins or make bread — a crusty boule, my dad’s midwestern white bread, an herbed and dangerous focaccia, you name it — in bulk and freeze it. i am more or less guaranteed to have the backbone of salad and toast in my kitchen.
• iterating on the same dish delights rather than daunts me. my approach is formulaic (more on that in a few paragraphs!) which makes making lunch meditative. salad and toast provide structure for the produce i purchase but do not dictate what i buy; i am able to follow my whims and intuitions instead of rules.
• carbs, plants, and plant-based protein constitute a satisfying meal for me. i do consume dairy products and eggs a few times per week and meat on occasion, but, right now, i much prefer how i feel after consuming a filling plant-based meal.
• mundanity means less waste. i’ve learned in what quantities i need to buy the ingredients to make salad and toast which enables me to finish them before they spoil.

food philosophizing aside, i simply love the taste of a good salad and gussied-up slices of toast. my lunches aren’t cheffy, but, at worst, i end up with food whose quality suffices for me.

i mentioned earlier that i have a rough formula for making salad and an even hazier one for making toast. i’ll walk through the salad one by sharing three of the salads that i made last week.

salad #1

• kohlrabi leaves and lacinato kale, both coarsely chopped
• raw beetroot and fennel stems, both julienned
• pine nuts and sunflower seeds, both toasted
• scallion greens, sliced into rounds
• a dressing of apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, pomegranate molasses, lemon, and walnut oil
• a dash of garlic powder, sumac, salt, and pepper
• a smattering of dukkah (store-bought, baybee!) and fennel fronds, torn

salad #2:

• kohlrabi leaves, coarsely chopped
• fennel stems, cut on the bias
• raw beetroot, julienned
• romanesco, crumbled
• walnuts and sunflower seeds, the former crumbled and both toasted
• scallion greens, sliced into rounds
• a smattering of dukkah and fennel fronds, torn
• leftover dressing from salad #1
• a dash of salt and pepper

salad #3:

• fennel, slice as thinly as i could by hand
• raw beetroot, julienned
• kohlrabi leaves and lacinato kale, coarsely chopped
• cara cara orange, chunked
• a chhonk/tadka of olive oil, cumin seeds, pine nuts, and sunflower seeds that i nearly burnt
• a dressing of apple cider vinegar, shallots (diced), dijon mustard, honey, and tahini
• a smattering of fennel fronds, torn

though i’ve made many a salad that bears little resemblance to those three, they all have a few things in common:

• hearty leaves
• contrasting textures, especially different types of crunch
• seasonal or otherwise compelling produce that can be broken down into bite-sized pieces
• protein via nuts, seeds, and/or their butters; legumes; and/or cheese
• allium- and/or acid-forward dressings

my beloved salad principles won’t appeal to everyone, but i suspect that identifying what you — the hypothetical salad naysayer — like in a salad would help you make salads that are distinctly not sad. (hot take: i simply cannot relate to people who deem homemade salads “sad” because i’ve figured out what i like in mine.)

salads served as my gateway to crafting meals from components. i’m not sure whether veteran home cooks use the word “component” in this way, but, when i saw it in lukas volger’s cookbook start simple, i felt like i could finally put a name to the practice i’ve most relied on throughout my pandemic-induced cooking frenzy.

“But my favorite kind of cooking is and will always be weeknight food: of-the-moment cooking, the stuff that comes together pretty quickly by assembly of a few components, inspired by what’s on hand. Sometimes it can’t be re-created, cobbled together as it is from bits of leftovers and odds and ends that are hiding in the fridge. But it’s honest cooking, not always wedded to a recipe, lending itself to inspired swaps and substitutions.”

i’d also apply “of-the-moment,” “can’t be re-created,” and “not always wedded to a recipe” to the cooking i do for myself. i’m a bit more cautious when cooking for others, though i rarely follow a recipe to a tee in order to cut down on extraneous groceries and effort. nonetheless, volger’s blurb encapsulates why i’ve come to cherish solo cooking: the flexibility to riff with components is freeing, inventive, and fun.

it feels strange not to wrap up this entry with a call to action or conclusion, but, like many aspects of my life, my cooking praxis is a work in progress that refuses neat packaging. also informal writing is — or should be — about staying true to my voice, not the mandates of online engagement. my only aim is to foster a space in which readers can feel comfortable to share thoughts, questions, ideas, et cetera if and when they have them. until next time!