Haricot vert with shallots. Nearly a year ago, I told you about my favorite side dish.
But what I failed to tell you is that these things change suddenly for no apparent reason. One day I’ll try something I’m certain sounds too uninteresting to be executed well–in that case, zucchini, almonds and a bit of parmesan, barely cooked–and the flavor blows my mind to the point that I must eat it that night, the next one and all the days that follow, then pausing for a couple weeks just to pick it up once more. Well, it has happened again. Two weeks ago, Alex and I got home late from the gym and decided to order salads from the French diner-ish place a couple blocks away, but I suddenly became worried that my salad would not be enough food and threw in a side of haricot vert, or those skinny French green beans I love so much. Nevertheless, my expectations were very low–I mean, you’ve got to cook these guys to a very specific point and then stop, and I failed to see how that would work when they needed to arrive warm.
P.S. Artichoke, cranberry bean and arugula salad. Sometimes I’m worried that I might be boring you guys.
Yes, yes, being plagued by feelings of dullness and inadequacy, how very tired of me. But, let’s take some of the themes we have here; artichokes, beans, arugula, salad, bread and the most repetitive one of all: I ate something somewhere, and had to have it again ASAPso I triedto make it myself. Today, we’ve got all of them bundled into one. I try to say to myself, Deb, not everyone is infatuated by artichokes, arugula, beans and salads and every single way you can think of eating them either separately or together. I try to rationalize, although it’s not my strong suit. We went out to dinner at really-you-must-go-there Dressler in Williamsburg on Saturday night with our most newly-married friends.
I fixed this last night. Now, I know preparing artichokes can be a little intimidating, and this dish had the extra twist of trimming them into a bowl-shape, which I will try to make as simple as possible for you to try yourself. Zucchini carpaccio salad. Here in the Northeast, where our winters get frigidly cold and our summers are known to snap into the high 90s for days on end, I have a somewhat sinister theory about the weather, and that is that it’s mocking you.
It’s waiting for you to snap and when you do, it has a hearty laugh at your expense. Bust out the ski jacket, 20-foot scarf and Gore-Tex accessories the first cold day in October? Snicker, snicker. Sink down in front of the a/c with a bag of ice on your forehead the first 90-degree, 100 percent humidity day in June? Imagine the sun’s Mr. I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but hoo boy, is it hot up in NYC right now–and it’s not even June yet, which means that it’s too soon to succumb to bowls of icy granita and dinners of frozen grapes and proscuitto-wrapped melon. My recent madoline purchase is giving me an excuse to delve into a surprising volume of recipes that are a hundred times more successful/less labor with a fierce blade. Put arugula greens in a large bowl. Avocado and Grapefruit Salad.