Ambrosia salad what you need. Trust me. I’m a professional.
When I lived in the south I had a friend who was a little bit crazy. Actually, really, very crazy. But she was my friend and she was fun until she wasn’t, and she hated ambrosia salad.
Growing up sugar-free, I never knew there was such a thing as ambrosia salad until I got much older, and then the combination of canned fruit and whipped topping was not really something that appealed to me sober, so I never really investigated it. I liked the idea of a salad that was ambrosial, though, and I never quite forgot about it.
But then I met Nancy (name changed to protect her, and me, for she really is crazy), and she challenged me to make an ambrosia salad she liked for a potluck she was having. I did, and it was truly ambrosial. None of this canned, tin-tasting fruit and plastic whipped cream. The secret was fresh ingredients, toasted coconut, and toasted pecans, plus a little pinch of salt at the end.
Could we all use some sweetness and light right now? Yes, I believe we could. Here it is.
Ingredients
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
½ cup chopped pecans, toasted
2 oranges, suprémed and cut into ½” pieces
1 large grapefruit, suprémed and cut into ½” pieces
1/2 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into ½” pieces
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
3 T confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
Method
Preheat oven to 350⁰. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place pecans and coconut on the baking sheet. Toast until both begin to brown or darken in color, shaking to prevent burning. This happens fast, so watch closely.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
Place fruit in a large bowl with mini marshmallows.
In a medium bowl, beat whipping cream to soft peaks. Add vanilla and sugar and continue beating until the cream just stands up when the beaters are removed (not too stiff).
Fold whipping cream into fruit. Chill completely.
Before serving, add toasted coconut, toasted pecans, and salt and stir to combine.
Recipe notes
Maraschino cherries often make an appearance here, but I cannot stomach all of that artificial color. If you must add cherries, add ½ cup of fresh Bing cherries or go completely over the top and add the same amount of Luxardo cherries. Truly heavenly.
So it’s about 70 degrees outside as I type this from my aerie facing 35th Street in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore.
Just now, I can hear a firetruck and, over that, my neighbor Clarence’s loud voice, booming from his front door as he drinks from a plastic cup that has invariably been filled with something of a high proof since the clock struck 12. He greets everyone, makes small talk, just to be outside in the neighborhood.
It’s a thing, that, the conviviality of a person you don’t know, hailing you from the street as you walk past. He gets louder as the day wears on, and what is now a bit muddy to hear will ring clear as day by the time the sun sets over the yardarm. He is as constant as the sun, out in all weather, and generally one of the things that make daily life in this era feel “normal.”
My day has been filled with an early hike through Druid Hill Park, COVID baking, and this delicious lunch – Warm Lentil and Potato Salad.
The recipe is not mine, but it needs sharing. I made a few changes – you should, too, based on whatever is in your pantry.
To wit:
Subbed red onion for shallot
Used French lentils (but I think caviar lentils would be incredible here)
Subbed kosher dill chips for capers AND gherkins (it’s what I had – spicy pickles would have been nice)
Used coarse ground mustard
Subbed chives for scallions
Used new potatoes that were getting long in the tooth
Fresh herbs may be challenging, but I used parsley, thyme, and chives from my back porch. I imagine you could use dried thyme if you needed to, but the fresh parsley was sort of key.
Serving sizes in the recipe are true. Makes four big dinner servings, especially with a dippy egg cracked on top (which I did not have – see aforementioned COVID baking). I warrant this will be good cold, too, but you could warm it up if you feel so inclined.
Sharp and salty, zingy from the vinegar, and creamy with the flesh of new potatoes, this lunch feels like a healthy hug. I highly recommend it.
Eating with a spoon is the best kind of eating. Fight me.
Well, here we are, July 1, time for me to begin to pull together the one blog a month I felt I could pull off.
Yes, this is past tense.
But I am not going to beat myself up about it. Because here I am, on the 1st, sitting in my studio, looking at a painting in progress and watching the neighborhood scary/tragic neighbor do slow and sweaty laps around the block on a loop. And writing this.
This July 1st, I find my two favorite people out of town, one for one week, the other for two, and I am feeling a mite blue about that. Mine is a generally solitary existence, but the people I like I really like and I want them around.
On top of the stupid solar system and my MIA people, my plan to get rejected is going well. The goal is 100 rejections by the end of 2020, and although I started off slowly, things are picking up. I found a place that will reject my work within 24 hours, and The Sun has rejected my photography, poetry, and prose. The point of all of this rejection is to get serious about submission and creating new works, and to some extent, it is working. I have written a couple of new poems this past month and have been note-taking and researching other forms of poetry and doing generally writerly things.
But the rejection can be a little challenging. Not knock-me-back-on-my-ass challenging, just not completely pleasant. I have gotten some lovely form rejection letters (in the vein of, “This is no commentary on the quality of the writing” which may, upon reflection, be a falsehood and not very nice at all and actually a loud commentary on the quality of the writing).
I do have a poem being published in Plainsongs this month. The acceptance letter referred to it as “your fine poem.” My self-esteem will be dining on those three words for at least the rest of the summer.
So I am just feeling meh and low-grade shitty. As this is a blog, I put that forth as an entirely legitimate way to describe what I am feeling. I am saving the words for the poetry.
And I have been cooking, even though it’s sad little meals for one. Today I made mango sticky rice in the rice cooker and some granola with the last bits of Costco dried mango (it’s mango-riffic), the only fruit I could scrounge up in my pantry.
I made gluten-free chocolate frosted chocolate fudge chocolate Pop-tarts that I had to throw out because they were making me ill, they were so rich (I saved an unfrosted batch in the ‘fridge).
I made epic pizza crust and ate the shit outta that (pro-tip: don’t make the crust too thin and it’s MONEY).
Many other lesser lights have made it to the groaning board in the past 30 days, but here’s the thing: when I feel low-grade shitty, I only want to cook sweet things, or else I want to lounge around in my bed and eat chips and watch crappy Netflix (I call this “Netflix and chonk”).
When this gets old, I need some food for real. Easy food that can be made with whatever is in the ‘fridge that’s not cold cereal, chips, gluten-free chicken tenders, or an entire cake.
So I make confetti salad.
Easy: boil two cups of water/veggie stock and add one cup rinsed quinoa and half a diced onion. Cover and cook until fluffy.
Add to a large bowl: three shredded carrots, one diced bell pepper, handful of chopped cilantro, handful of dried fruit, handful of pumpkin seeds, handful of sunflower seeds, can of chickpeas (rinsed and rained), juice of one lemon, olive oil, and black pepper. Add cooked quinoa, stir, adjust seasoning (maybe more lemon juice or olive oil), and you’re done.
Infinite variations. Add sliced snap peas. Dried fruit can be raisins, cranberries, barberries, mango, cherries. Add a thinly sliced spicy pepper. Use parsley instead of cilantro. Mix up the seeds. Add fresh, halved cherry tomatoes. Add warm grilled chicken (otherwise it’s vegan).
I eat this warm, cold, and room temperature. Throw it over greens. Whatever. Perfect for when your people are gone and you have been barefisting hunks of cake in front of the ‘fridge since they left.
Court’s indulgence. This picture is blurry. It was a long day.
It’s not often that things on TV are pretty much exactly the same in real life.
Last week I sat on a jury for a five-day trial. The defendant was accused of 24 counts of crime, including first-degree rape and possessing a weapon when he wasn’t allowed to possess a weapon.
(Fun fact: the defendant’s last crime was prosecuted by Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993. Federal drug charge.)
I have never sat on an actual jury; I have been called for jury duty three times in my life, and mostly it’s just lots of sitting around and watching movies like How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Avatar. This time was different, and I was quickly seated as Juror #4 by noon on my first day of reporting, then sent home until Monday when the trial would begin.
Everything about the trial was pretty much what it looks like on TV: the dramatic opening and closing statements, the cross examination, the witnesses getting testy with the defense attorney, and, finally, conflict (and resolution) in the deliberation room.
Time seemed strangely fluid as well; hours would pass in the courtroom in what seemed like minutes, but in the deliberation room, every minute was an agony of waiting. At the end of the day we would emerge from our windowless room, cram ourselves into the elevator, and then emerge at the corner of St. Paul and Lexington, blinking against the too-bright sunshine of the late afternoon, at the height of rush hour to crawl our way home.
Of all the things that stuck in my mind that week, one in particular stands out. Whenever the lawyers had to gather something or find something that meant the action had to pause briefly, they would say, “Court’s indulgence,” and the judge would nod, indicating that she was cool with the wait.
“Court’s indulgence.”
I don’t know why, but I love this saying. It’s a respectful request for permission to pause while you gather your thoughts, something we could all use every now and then.
One day when I came home it was stuck in my head like a mantra, playing over and over as I fed the dogs and made dinner. On that night, it was hot outside and the back door was open, letting in a feeble breeze (and lots of flies, which drives The Black Dog crazy, an admittedly short trip). It had been an especially long day, nine to five listening to a case about rape and gun violations, and I wasn’t particularly interested in making something complicated for dinner or turning on the stove.
Court’s indulgence: I remembered my preserved lemons, which were ready and waiting.
Court’s indulgence: There were some small, sweet yellow, red, and orange peppers in the crisper, along with half a red onion and some arugula that I wouldn’t even need to wash.
Court’s indulgence: A bomb shelter’s worth of canned beans in the coolness of the basement.
Et voila. Dinner, eaten with the court’s indulgence, on the balcony in the back of the house as the evening wore on and the sun sank low.
White Bean, Sweet Pepper, And Arugula Salad With Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette
Ingredients
2 tablespoons minced preserved lemon (rinse to remove salt and also strip away the squishy flesh)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup best-quality olive oil (it matters)
1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper (I like a lot of pepper)
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
One large red pepper, chopped, or five small multi-color pepper, chopped
1/2 large red onion, sliced
Handful of arugula per salad
Method
Make things easy on yourself and mix this all in the same bowl. I used a medium-sized round white Corningware bowl.
Place first five ingredients in bowl and mix together. Add beans, peppers, and onions and stir to combine.
To serve, place a large handful of arugula in a bowl, then top with beans. If you feel the need, you can drizzle with more olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, but mix it all around and taste before you do that.
Beans are even better the next day, chilled and then brought to room temp before serving.
As I emerge, blinking, into the March sun from the deepest recesses of the hell that is February and look around, I realize that my house is decidedly not in order.
It happens this way, sometimes.
When the earth begins its long march away from the sun, starting in June but accelerating in earnest as we move through November, I can feel myself retreating, hibernating. I may join humanity for a holiday party or three, but fuck it.
Bears don’t clean.
So the house gets a basic wipedown to prevent it from looking like a truckstop and to keep us in clean clothes and toilets – a whore’s bath of housecleaning, if you will – but other than that the baseboards grow furry, as do the underneath parts of nearly every surface in the house.
I was gifted a year’s worth of cleaning lady for Mother’s Day one year, and after the lady’s first visit she remarked, “It looked good until I started cleaning.”
This is nearly every winter of my life.
But the other side of this is that I cannot function well in a house that is filled with dirt. Metaphorical or otherwise.
Everywhere I look there is grime.
#BadFengShui
I feel like Punxatawney Phil (the only groundhog. #FuckOffGeneralLee). Of course he is going to see his shadow. They wake him up at the crack of dawn and shine lights on him, and all he can think about is whether or not he has crumbs on his chest from lying on his ass all winter, binge-watching Nurse Jackie while eating dry chocolate Chex because milk is superfluous and they are GLUTEN FREE now. He just wants to waddle back to his hole and go back to bed for six more weeks until someone comes in and cleans his house for him.
Or maybe it’s just me.
So here we are, early March.
It’s time to clean up our act. My act.
Whatever.
I feel a massive wave of cleaning energy coming on. It’s slow, to be sure, but I have finally thrown out the Galentine’s Day flowers and the Christmas tree is near the back fence, ready for a kindly neighbor who may or may not be heading to the dump sometime soon (#TrueStory).
I have changed my sheets and located new ones so they can be changed more frequently.
I bought glass shower cleaner and two rolls of paper towels.
I am getting ready to take various books to the Little Free Libraries located around Hampden, and I am ready to give away and reorganize many of the various things we have accumulated over the less-than-one-year we have been in this house.
It’s time to go top-to-bottom, left-to-right on this bitch.
Usually when I clean like this, I leave directly afterwards so I have the wonderful experience of walking into a house that looks and smells good.
But sometimes people suck and I just don’t feel like venturing out into the world beyond a long walk in the woods, where food is to be found but not easily and not in quantity.
I can’t order pizza in, and although my gluten-free variety is easy, still too much effort after a day collecting ALL THE DOG HAIR IN THE WORLD.
Enter salad.
What the fuck, you say. Or WTF if you are a millennial and #JustCantEven.
Not just any salad.
This time of year the farmer’s marker basket is overrrun with hearty greens: arugula, kale, spinach et al. You can’t juice them fast enough. You can’t put them in soups fast enough. Your kids hate them sauteed, no matter how much you talk about Popeye who’s strong to the finish ’cause he eats his spinach.
Side note: My brother and I used to stuff wads of spinach in our cheeks, call them chew, and spit the juice out on the patio for hours after dinner was over, finally divesting out distended cheeks of the desiccated spinach remains when the novelty wore off. Maybe my mom thought we were absorbing nutrients through our cheeks, or maybe she was overrun with greens herself and didn’t give a rat’s ass at that point.
But back to salad.
This salad is delicious, easy, filling, and versatile as hell. The basics are there, waiting to be supplemented by what you have. Chickpeas leftover? Toss them in. Grilled chicken or steak? Yup. Other types of fruit? Have at it.
After hours of scrubbing walls, baseboards, and stainless steel, this salad makes very few dishes; I tend to eat it with my fingers out of the bowl I made it in.
Kale/Arugula Salad With Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Kale or arugula or whateverthefuck greens you have (but no iceberg. #KeepinItReal)
One small bulb of fennel, sliced (optional)
One crisp apple, sliced thin (optional)
One handful of blueberries (optional)
One handful of strawberries, sliced (optional. Are you sensing a trend? Do what you like)
Squeeze of lemon, if using apples
1/2 cup toasted pecans (or any other nut you like, or no nuts if they make you swell up)
1/2 cup apple cider
2 T apple cider vinegar
4 T olive oil (or other oil, whatever you have)
1 tsp. honey
grind of black pepper
squeeze of Dijon mustard (optional, but it helps the other ingredients emulsify and gives the dressing some heft)
pinch of salt
Method
Place greens and other additions (apple, fennel, nuts, etc) in a large stainless steel bowl.
In a Mason jar, combine cider, vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, and pepper.
Shake like hell.
Wait until you are ready to eat, then shake the dressing and pour it on the salad. Eat it all up.
And hey…don’t wait all winter to clean your house.
