He Cooks, She Cooks

Last week I picked up a pint of beautiful cherry tomatoes at The Root Cellar. I popped a whole one in my mouth and it was like candy (which is a wonder because I didn’t even like tomatoes really until I got to college). I was so happy to finally have a tasty tomato after months of winter. But the sun was shining that day in Columbia, and I decided to make a meal that would feel like my perennially warm home of Los Angeles: a light and fresh taco salad.

I love beans and cheese too, but this was not a day for those. This day was about the fresh tomatoes and greens I had picked up. I made a sweet and spicy corn salsa with the cherry tomatoes. Then, I filled the tacos with a chorizo and ground beef mixture, green peppers and red onions (cooked, but still tender), the salsa, sour cream and cilantro. I put the tacos on top of a bed of greens for presentation, then we went out to my front porch, and smashed the tacos and mixed the whole thing together to eat as a salad.

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There’s one salad dressing I never get tired of, and that’s my mom’s balsamic vinaigrette with garlic and basil. It’s so simple, but people love it. Both Michael’s mom and my friend Becky’s mom asked me to make it within hours of arriving in their states (Illinois and New Jersey, respectively). Little does my mom know she’s starting a salad revolution. She’s satisfied just getting my brother and sister to eat their leafy greens.

My mom washes a bunch of fresh basil, squeezes the water out and freezes the whole stack wrapped in plastic wrap and foil. Then she takes it out and slices however much she needs. So resourceful.

Also, I’d like to refute Russ Parson’s offhand comment about balsamic vinegar: “Balsamic vinegar is known for its sweetness, but in a burnt-sugar-caramel kind of way that doesn’t fit most culinary purposes (and certainly not salads).” I know, who am I to argue with the food editor at the LA Times? But it’s just not true. This vinaigrette is great for so many salads — whether it’s just lettuce, a garden mix or something with shrimp, steak or chicken.

Steak salad with peppers, onions, avocado and my mom's balsamic vinaigrette — fast but amazing lunch

Sorry Russ, I’ll take balsamic over a red wine vinegar and dijon version any day.

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I am sure this salad sets the record for most ingredients — steak, mushrooms, goat cheese, hard boiled eggs, pecans, bacon, sage, cilantro, chives, basil, lavender, honey, croutons and many others. But Craig Cyr’s point was to show off the great local products from Saturday morning’s farmer’s market. It worked. The executive chef and owner of The Wine Cellar & Bistro in Columbia put on a cooking demonstration using almost entirely fresh and local goods. He made the most elaborate salad I’ve ever seen, but it was one of the best I’ve tasted, too.

“The market this morning seemed to scream salad,” Cyr said. But with a slight chill in the air he decided to make a warm vinaigrette for a hearty lunch or dinner salad. The idea gradually came together at the market and in the kitchen, then continued to evolve as he prepared the dish in front of the crowd.

He put an Asian style marinade on the flank steak from Show Me Farms. Then he sautéed mushrooms in butter and white wine, and made a red wine vinaigrette with bacon and chives — very French. Thus, he dubbed the salad “East meets West.”

I loved that every bite was different from the previous. Sometimes you got a lion’s mane mushroom and lavender-scented pecan. Then it would be a bite of cilantro, bacon and egg. You’d get steak with goat cheese. Or spinach and a crouton. There were different textures, and the sweet, sour and savory balance was perfect.

Craig and Sarah Cyr, owners of The Wine Cellar & Bistro

I don’t know how much of each ingredient Cyr used, but I’ll go through the ingredients and process he went through. You can try to create something like it, or at least try some of the elements in a salad of your own.

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Michael and I cooked some impressive dinners for his parents and Kat’s parents, but we had to up the ante a bit for my family this winter. I’ve been cooking magazine meals with my parents for as long as I can remember. (I got my first subscription to Gourmet before I lost my first baby tooth. Not kidding.) So we decided to make a North African feast with lots of lamb, chicken and couscous.

I’ll say two words about this chicken: spice butter. Ok, I want to give you more words: Butter, cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne and cinnamon. Rubbed all over. Now, I’m not normally a glutton for chicken skin, but spice butter. I ate everything but the bones.

And the dates and apricots in chicken jus? I didn’t even think I liked dates. (I tried one from the box the next day, and they’re nothing without being roasted in spice-buttered chicken jus. Just sayin.)

The stew was also great, even though we totally rushed the process. The Darwell family has too high of metabolism for slow food. Luckily the stew didn’t suffer. The broth was full of flavor and just barely spicy, even with a whole habanero. Though, I have to give credit to the Los Angeles grocery store and the country of Australia for the lamb, which managed to be fork-tender even though we lumped off probably an hour of cooking time.

We served the dishes with piles of couscous and a side of refreshing carrot and fennel slaw. For dessert, I kept the spice theme going by making dark chocolate tart with gingerbread crust a la Smitten Kitchen.

Play some Algerian music from Cheb Mami, Rachid Taha or Khaled. Samira Said from Morocco is good too. If you can recommend any Tunisian artists, let me know.

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This is an incredibly easy but really tasty recipe, as Mark Bittman (author of How to Cook Everything) is known to create. I used red, yellow and green bell pepper, added shredded carrot and red cabbage, and skipped the onion because I didn’t have any. The recipe called for an optional tablespoon of sugar, which I left out.

I think it’s silly when recipes say “optional.” Everything is optional. And anything else can be added. Taste it and change it until you think it’s good. Be free!

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