Salad Days, Salad Nights

I got a call the other day from one of my guests” “Martin, we would like to place an order, but prefer to pick it up from you. Is that OK?” Sure. “But it’s a bit early.” OK, when would you like it? “Saturday morning around 9:30 am.” Sure, I said, as long as the order isn’t something crazy that is going to keep me up half the night. “No problem,” was the reply, “we mostly want a bunch of salads.”

If there is one thing I have learned from my time in the kitchen is that some of the simplest dishes take the most time and care. Take the roasted carrot and beet salad pictured in this post. The carrots should be blanched first before roasting. The beets? I like to cook them sous vide and then roast those. The rakett and parsley leaves that help balance the tastes need to be individually managed. The cumin vinaigrette: another balancing act of 3 parts fat to one part acid, with freshly-picked seasonings. And so on. And that’s just one salad. I’m not even going to tell you how many others were on this order, nor the steps involved with each.

But the connective tissue from earth to thoughtful preparation to remarkable taste is nothing short of magical. That’s the intent anyway.