The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

After 2 weeks of eating white bread for almost every meal, I haven’t been able to eat anything but fresh vegetables since I got home. I know it seams a bit simple to be posting a recipe as basic as an heirloom tomato salad, but this is what I’ve been eating so tough! Ha! No in all seriousness there were some amazing looking heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market this morning and I just wasn’t strong enough to leave without a few of them. For the most part I’m powerless against these, when I see some good ones I just can’t walk away.

This salad is so simple and really needs nothing aside from some ripe heirloom tomatoes and maybe a bit of olive oil and some sea salt. I added in the pea shoots and thought the sweetness really complemented these amazing subtle tomatoes, but of course they aren’t necessary.

This is the second celery root slaw recipe I’ve written about. I guess it goes without saying that I’m quite fond of this root. While I’ve made it as I would any other slaw – a side to a summer BBQ type meal or just by itself -  these days I have an obsession with celery root slaw paired with tacos.

From fish to pork tacos there’s something about celery root that  is a refreshing change from your everyday cabbage slaw. Now don’t all you slaw lovers get your knives in a bunch over that last statement. I have nothing against cabbage based saws, in fact on the contrary I love them. I also think the pairing of cabbage and tacos is a great one, it is a classic after all but lets keep an open mind shall we?

I don’t know about you, but I have an extremely hard time straying away from my everyday salad dressing for my everyday salad. For the past 10 years or so I have been simply mixing some good olive oil with a squeeze of lemon juice, a smashed garlic clove and sea salt and after allowing the garlic to infuse the oil for a few minutes, tossing this with whatever greens I have on hand.

Easy and delicious.

The simplicity of this dressing has always pleased me. It’s easy but don’t be fooled into thinking this makes it ordinary in any way. The only thing you have to remember is to use good olive oil and not be afraid to season it with sea salt. I won;t get started on this last point. This dressing gets all sorts of complements too, which is even more satisfying because when someone asks you what is on this fabulous salad dressing you can simply say ” just a little olive oil and lemon juice” and you wouldn’t be stretching the truth too much.

I’m back and extremely relieved about it. There’s something very unsettling about the past few weeks, wanting desperately to write but feeling like I can’t possibly do that without the accompanying photos. For those of you that don’t know, I had the misfortune of losing my camera charger few weeks ago and after finally giving up the search for it, during a particularly spazy moment (I’m good at those) I ordered another one on ebay without bothering to check the country of the seller.Ugh.

I was just so desperate to regain the use of my camera that it never even occurred to me that there may be people from from Singapore in the generic camera accessory market. Who would have thought? I know, stupid me but sort of typical of the way a tend to flail about in moments of panic.

Simplicity is everything for me right now. Over the past couple weeks I’ve been in the process of cleaning out our over cluttered apartment in preparation for the month long separation from our beloved home during the winter Olympics. As of Sunday we’ve managed to clean out almost everything in the bathroom, closet, bedroom and living room and as of this weekend we will finally be forced to do the same to our kitchen. Sigh.

I knew when it came down to it it would be challenge, but I suspect the magnitude of the challenge will be greater than I initially thought. Over the  last 3 years I’ve managed to develop an extensive collection of spices, condiments, flours, grains, dried goods of all shapes and sizes not to mention every gadget under the sun and I’m absolutely in love with every single piece of it, even the extremely unnecessary and underused – garlic peeler I’m looking at you. I think this might have something to do with being a pack rat, or at least that’s what my husband would say, I’m more comfortable with the term collector to be quite honest.