Reds and Greens

For those of you who've been reading this column over the course of its brief life, you know how much of a fan I am of the Union Square Greenmarket - and of the NYC Greenmarkets in general. After having lived in Italy for several years, I really came to appreciate the seasonality of food. When I returned to the States many years ago, after my time in Europe, I knew that I just couldn't go back to the way I ate before I'd left.

Although sometimes it can be difficult, I still try to keep my food intake in line with the seasons. I also try in this blog to stick to recipes where the ingredients are reflective of the time of year. Not being an expert in food production, it can be a minefield just trying to sift through all the information behind what we should be eating when in order to get the most nutritional benefits out of our diets. I know that I definitely am not perfect in this regard.

The tomato-salmonella scare of this year, along with the spinach one of a couple of years ago, about which I'd also blogged, just reinforce some of the other news that we've been hearing in the food press. Food miles, carbon footprints, knowing the source of your ingredients: those are components of the things we're asked to consider these days when shopping for our weekly meals. If you haven't managed to pick up The United States of Arugula, I highly recommend it. It brings up some of the issues behind our current food policy dilemmas.

Alas, not for crabs...

This year, it is unlikely that we'll get together to do the family crab feast, at least from what I've been told so far. Part of the reason for this is that the crab stock in the Chesapeake Bay is dwindling and so crabs have gotten more expensive and are smaller. One solution, the press has noted is to let the Bay rest for a year so that the crabs can come back. I'd gladly hold off for a summer, if it meant I could have some to eat the next year.

This raises the question, though: How to get one's Old Bay fix? Just opening the can brings back memories of crabfeasts past and boiled shrimp cooked in these spices. The smell is like a great sailing day on the Chesapeake Bay with the cool wind mingling with the salty water on one's face. It just smells like my old summer camp - with the added bonus of there being no jellyfish around.

When going through my mother's recipe file a few years ago, I discovered this dish. It came about long after I'd moved out of my parent's home, but it seemed to be come a new favorite. It wouldn't have made it to the card file if no one had enjoyed it. I wish I could have found the author of it, but the Internet couldn't turn up the source.

Spinach Salad

Before you turn up your nose or click away from this post, I ask you to at least consider trying a freshly-made spinach salad. This is still from the series of recipes from the family card file that I'm testing once again. Like usual, I've made some minor tweaks to it but really nothing drastic.

Like you, I was turned off from this vitamin-packed leafy green as a child. Poorly cooked, drained of all flavor, and lifeless, it was really not one of my favorite vegetables. I'm not sure that you could have paid me to eat this when I was growing up, and I remember it appearing only a couple of times at the dinner table. Now I realize that crisp, bright green, seasonal leaves make all the difference in this salad.


The Greenmarket did not fail to deliver when I was shopping there today, looking for something wonderful to pair with my leftover flank steak. Just see how amazingly fresh and full of life these leaves look. A few strips of meat alongside the lightly dressed spinach topped with toasted walnut pieces and a glass of red wine and I'm in iron-packed, anti-oxident heaven!

Spinach Salad*

Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Servings: 4-5 adults

Ingredients:
4 cups loosely-packed and thoroughly cleaned spinach leaves (baby are best)
1/2 cup walnut pieces, dry toasted and cooled
2 Tbsp good white wine vinegar
1 medium garlic clove, crushed
1 Tbsp dijon mustard (not grainy mustard)
1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Assembly:
Place walnuts in a non-stick pan on low heat or on a baking tray in a 300 degree Fahrenheit oven. Let roast for about 5-10 minutes until lightly browned but not burned.

While the walnuts are roasting, prep the spinach leaves. Rinse completely, possibly several times, to remove all traces of dirt and grit. Trim off the woody ends (if using larger leaves). Run through a salad spinner or pat dry with paper towels and put into a serving bowl. Check the walnuts to see if they are done. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool.

Stir together the white wine vinegar, garlic, and mustard. Whisk in the olive oil in a thin stream until the dressing is fully combined. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the dressing over the salad. Top with the walnuts, and toss everything together until it is fully incorporated.

*There are two things to add to this recipe. One is that my mother makes a version that omits the walnuts and, instead, takes sliced mushrooms, adds them to the dressing, lets them sit for about 30 minutes or so, and then pours everything over the spinach leaves. Why she didn't then also add bacon to it is one of life's culinary mysteries. This would make a good steakhouse type salad.

The other addition is an attribution. My mother thinks that this recipe actually came from one of Julia Child's newspaper columns. She's going to do some research for me on this, as I couldn't come up with anything online by way of substantiation. Aside from the tweaks I made about toasting the walnuts, which I think bring a heartier flavor to the salad, I am not going to claim that this is my own creation, rather it is something that found its way into our family card file, and I've decided needs to be kept in mine as well.

Buon appetito!