Enjoy It Raw While It Lasts

Soon the days of easy prep meals will be over, when you could walk into a kitchen, slice a tomato, wash some greens and be eating in 5 minutes.

Instead, we’ll be forced to wait an hour as thick winter squash bakes to tenderness in a hot oven. In winter it’s easier to wait for dinner, as the cold air doesn’t tempt for evening walks and late-night drinks on a rooftop.

But while it’s still lovely outside, and the season’s produce remains quick to prepare, remember that a raw salad is pretty rad.

Raw Summer Salad with Smoked Whitefish

This salad is ripe for flexibility, so throw in what you’ve got in the fridge. The taste of raw vegetables are much different than their cooked counterpart, so it’s fun to remember the snap of a bell pepper and the nose-tingle of a raw onion. With produce so fresh I didn’t even need a dressing, especially as the fatty whitefish salad complemented the clean vegetables.

I sliced up a yellow roma tomato, half a cucumber (peeled), half of a mutli-colored bell pepper and one tiny, tiny onion. I heavily seasoned all of the cut pieces with kosher salt and pepper and then quickly charred a corn tortilla on the burner. I lumped a few spoonfuls of smoked whitefish on top and called it finito.

 

Is Bobby Flay a Liar?

bagels

My boyfriend and I traveled around Arizona for the last few days. We were invited for a wedding (Hi Mrs. Gaul!) in Rio Verde, but decided to take spend extra time in the state, mostly to delay that almost-five-hour flight back.  We first ate dinner in Scottsdale (yes to Buffalo Carpaccio at Cowboy Ciao) and then stayed at a hotel/casino in Fort McDowell, which is built on tribal land. We then drove north to Sedona to visit my cousins and then north again and hiked about a mile into the Grand Canyon.

photo (36)

As this is a food blog, I won’t bore you with the beauty of the red rocks in Sedona and the pure fucking insanity that is the Grand Canyon (I think I said “What the fuck?!” every few steps.) I will, however, let you know my limited dining choices. I say choices because the options were not limited. We just chose the same thing over and over again.

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My Resolution to Start Smoking This New Year

smokedwhitefish

I think the first time I had smoked fish was in sushi, not the oft walked Jewish path of lox on a bagel with cream cheese. I had plenty of exposure to smoked salmon and smoked whitefish salad, mostly at bat mitzvah luncheons and funerals. Unfortunately, my personal smoked fish craze didn’t hit until I was living in DC, and we notoriously lack Jewish delis.

However, 80 and I just celebrated friends’ wedding in southern Florida, eating and partying our way through Sunny Isles Beach, Hollywood and West Palm Beach. And wow, it was nice to be around the Jews. I never can find the pleasure of smoked whitefish in the District. There are maybe 2 New York style delis in the area, and I haven’t fell in love with either of them.

But in Florida! Florida!

After the nuptials, 80 and I visited with my grandmother. While at lunch I schmeared smoked whitefish salad on a pumpernickel bagel (80 choose wrongly and ordered the *lean* pastrami sandwich and Mommom took down matzah brei, a bagel and hash browns). Whitefish salad is less pungent than smoked salmon, it’s creamier than a tuna salad consistency, but with a saltier, less generic taste. It also doesn’t reek of mayo.

Later that day at my aunt and uncle’s golf clubhouse, the free (!) snacks offered in the bar area were smoked whitefish salad right next to boursin cheese (It was actually quite funny, they had a chef in full whites slicing the boursin on a wooden cutting board akin to prime rib), swiss cheese triangles, broccoli florets, grape tomatoes and crackers. It was a mid-winter miracle.

So apparently we’re in week four of the New Year. I had this majestic resolution—obviously food related—but I haven’t started it yet. I will start making claims now. I will hopefully cash them in before 2011.

I will smoke a white fish. Whatever a white fish is. I will then take that smoked white fish and make a salad out of it.

There.

(Photo: PS95)