After the cooking marathon that was Mother’s Day weekend, I fished around for something to make for lunch today and came up with this salad above. (I’ll post the method below.) As I pulled it together the words “suddenly salad” came to mind.
If you aren’t a child of the 80’s, you may not understand this is a reference to a very odd consumer product advertised to us while we watched our afternoon TV shows. “Suddenly Salad” is the proper spelling of this product and the copy on the box reads:
These mixes can be prepared in just three simple steps and are made with delicious ingredients the whole family will love. Suddenly tasty, suddenly smiling, Suddenly Salad! Betty Crocker Suddenly Pasta Salad Classic Mix is the perfect side to a main dish.
Good reader, I am not here to sell you on this yesteryear product. I am here to bring you into the strange workings of my mind and convince you we all need to be thinking in a suddenly salad manner.
Forgo the expense of the box that has marinated vegetables, shriveled croutons, and pouch of your mom’s thick Italian salad dressing. Instead, learn to think about assembling a combination of whatever you have lying about. Produce is only the beginning. Use grains, pasta, cheese and make dressings that go beyond olive oil. Olive tapanades, nut and raisin chutneys, and yogurt dips are all fair game.
My favorite salad renegade is a woman named Julia Sherman who wrote a mind-blowing cookbook called, Salad For President. In it she interviews artists (Yui Tsujimura, Alice Waters, William Wegman etc.) and asks for their favorite salad recipe. What results is a tasty, new salad repertoire. If you don’t feel like springing for her book, you can follow her methods on Instagram. She’s an endless creative wellspring. Or as I like to think, a woman who is well out of her salad days.
Kate’s Suddenly Salad
Prep: 10 minutes
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients:
Heirloom tomato
Burrata
Kalamata olives
EVOO
Shallot
Garlic
Tarragon
Salt
Pepper
Method:
Arrange wedges of tomato on a platter.
Fill in burrata chunks around platter.
Make dressing by mixing chopped olives, minced garlic & shallot, and a good slosh of EVOO.
Sprinkle the dressing on tomatoes and burrata.
Top with a few sprigs of tarragon.
Salt and pepper to taste.