For many reasons I have not written anything on this blog for some considerable time. Blame in no logical order a) writing a contract magazine; b) too many holidays (I can feel the wave of sympathy already); c) finding there are many great English comic novels on Kindle for free (Surtees, HH Munro, the less well-known Jerome K Jerome stuff...); d) seeing Sternest Critic off to university (where he continues to prosper).
As this blog is ostensibly about food and its joys the first post (like the last post but not anywhere near as sad) of this new era (with new title suggested by a friend wise to the ways of the modern world) will be about the thing that has brought most culinary joy to the household of late, and we are convinced it is good for us. As so often, I need to take pictures - will do so the next time I make the simple but delicious dish/course - salade de crudites, which even without the accent sounds better than raw veg salad.
We grow a lot of beetroot, this year three varieties and in good quantity. Some is used in soups and stocks to give body and colour (especially if a little grated beet is added to a stock near the end of cooking, so the colour stays fresh and purple. Most is eaten raw in salads. Needing a first course to serve to some friends round for pot-luck, and with beet, carrot, red onion, a few leaves of rocket, one tomato and a kohl rabi to hand I thought about a plate of crudites (I wish yet again I could do the accent on this thing), then with a bit of a nudge from HF-W tried my hand at using different textures and a nice arrangement to prepare a pretty plateful. It worked well on that level, and was delicious when mixed up: kohl rabi peeled and sliced into discs piled at the bottom centre of the shallow bowl; strips of carrot peeled lengthwise and piled on top of the former; a rim of rocket leaves on which small chunks of tomato were placed, then coarsely grated beet of two varieties, one purple one pink and white rings, dropped on the carrot and similarly treated red onion atop the tomato. It was a little flower-arrangement of a thing that brightened the table beautifully, then when mixed and dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette tasted fresh and bright and healthy.
Variations on the theme have been eaten several times since then, with ingredients like avocado, little gem lettuce, boiled egg, and cucumber appearing and others like rocket if not to hand disappearing. It's just a salad, but the presentation (that takes mere seconds longer than lobbing everything together) makes it more special, and when mixed up in serving the textures remain as a reminder of the tiny bit of extra care and imagination.
This is now - until the debt mountains around the world bury us beneath an avalanche of demands for payment - a post-austerity blog. But that dish suits either tough times or good, costing pennies but looking like pounds.
