Extreme luxury, for me, is when the Farmer and kids are gone (once in a blue moon) for lunch and I can prepare whatever my heart desires. I've never understood women who look around, find themselves alone and pour a bowl of Yucky Charms cereal. "I don't have to cook!", they say defensively. No, you don't HAVE to cook, but you MAY cook...whatever in the world you've been longing for.
You see, as a wife and mom, I plan meals trying to suit the tastes of my family (within reason), our activities (lots of physical work means sturdier fare), even the weather. I attempt to get the food groups in, make sure the meals are decently healthy, and that there are no onions that can be seen with the naked seven year old eye. It's a big job, three times a day, 350 days a year at least.
When I'm alone, I don't HAVE to cook, either.
But it's on those days that I joyfully take stock of what my palate has been longing for that no one else would enjoy or be satisfied with and prepare myself the good stuff.
Today, it was a big ugly salad.
(Don't stop reading here! When I say, "salad", I'm talking about a bowl of food that has lettuce as a garnish, really. Stick with me!)
I'm alone, so I don't have to hurry to get it on the table in time. I don't have to get it to the table at all, truth be told.
I begin by setting the mood...
Pour a small glass of Chardonnay. (Horrors! It's only 11:00 a.m.!)
Find a Sophia Loren movie about treasure hunting in the Greek islands...yep, that will do. It was almost a French subtitled movie, but I like Sophia's voice. The whole point of it is to have something on that no one else in the family would tolerate any other time. It's my meal! It's my soundtrack!
Already it's fun, isn't it?
I take out a huge bowl for the salad. I won't make the salad to fit the bowl, but I want room to toss and swirl and shake up the whole mess. Salads that j-u-s-t barely fit in the bowl are very annoying to me and I don't need that sort of stress when I'm making this soul meal.
I make a little pillow of lettuce and cabbage in the bottom of the bowl to welcome the rest of the ingredients. Cabbage has a more satisfying crunch and stronger flavor which makes the salad seem a little more substantial.
Also, it will hold up under all the other good stuff, where lettuce alone sort of gives up and wilts a bit.
Cold things to add on top of the greens? Today I had green onions, orange bell pepper, poblano pepper, and pinapple. I've been eating carrots and tomatoes out of the garden, so they're sort of...ordinary. The orange bell pepper looks pretty against the other green-y things and makes me smile.
Here's where it gets sort of wild.
Here's where my heart does a happy little flitter...these next steps are what make this salad "ugly", but in a magnificent way.
I get out a big non-stick frying pan and plop a good dollop of real butter in the bottom. While that's melting, I add some chopped garlic (from a jar in the fridge) and a liberal amount of powdered chipotle chili pepper. And shake a little salt, for good measure. From the freezer, I pull out the hoarded shrimp that's already been deveined and cooked...and I toss about 6 or 7 in with the spicy butter. They'll saute and soak up the flavor while I have a couple sips of wine and move on to the next step.
(Sophia is working two different treasure hunters against each other to her advantage and I do believe she's making nearly as much progress as I am with my salad...)
I take out another, smaller non-stick frying pan and in this one goes the bacon bits (I had to use the Kirkland ones, but usually have a little pre-cooked bacon in the fridge) and the French's french fried onions. I turn the burner up and toast the little morsels of goodness until both are nice and crispy and smell heavenly. These I dump on the greens, then use the same pan to toast up the sliced almonds.
While the almonds are toasting, I take the sweet little shrimps out of their butter bath and add them to the ever-growing "salad". (If you make this, you'll want to save the spicy shrimp butter to dip your sourdough toast in. It's amazing...)
I scatter the almonds over the whole thing, then get my vinaigrette out of the fridge to finish this project. First thing in the week, I made a simple dressing of olive oil, vinegar and sweet red chili sauce (the kind you find in the Chinese cooking aisle at the grocery store). Shake it up, pour it over all, then take my fork and stir the salad up until it's all messy and pretty.
Then, I pour a leetle more Chardonnay in my wine glass, take my meal to the living room, sit cross legged on the couch, watch Sofia dive for a dolphin statue and eat my salad. (She obviously eats salads with more lettuce and less bacon...poor thing.)
The whole thing takes about an hour...a really wonderful hour, when I think about it. I'm too full for the spicy butter and toast, so I save that for later. It will be a happy reminder of the meal I made for myself.
*Note, here, on salads. When I make a salad for myself, I usually end up with a funny balance of sweet, spicy, crunchy, salty, both clean and complex flavors. I realize though, that sometimes one of the most comforting things is simplicity. If your life has felt out of control and you're tired of complex things, one of the nicest salads would be a wedge of iceburg lettuce and a favorite creamy dressing poured over the top. That would be happy soul-food, too.
*I DIDN'T take a picture because if you want to make this sort of salad for yourself, you shouldn't be trying to make it look like mine. Perhaps you'd put the crunchy fried onions and bacon on the bottom. Maybe you'd grill chicken instead of using shrimp. You might drink milk instead of white wine. Whatever rattles your can...
Now that Sophia has landed the treasure, her man and my wine glass is empty, I need to go clean up the kitchen so it looks like I didn't eat anything but a p.b. and j. for lunch when the family gets back....
