Healthy + Luscious? Try Green Goddess Quinoa + Chickpeas + Avocado. Or Kale + White Beans + Creamy Parmesan

You can top this Green Goddess Quinoa with one cubed avocado or two cubed avocados. Two is more luxurious. You deserve luxurious.

THE BOYS IN THE LAB have been in training for the Major League Pickleball Tournament in San Clemente next week, so lately I’ve had to do all the work in the salad lab (aka my kitchen) by myself. As usual.

It’s fine. And it’s in my best interest to give them paid time off for the extra coaching and practice, because if one of them gets traded or kicked off the team (God forbid) it’s going to be Grouch City around here for months. Maybe years.

I love these two chuckleheads madly, but I’m not ashamed to admit that my workdays in the kitchen feel like a little spa vacation whenever they’re gone. No one frowns at me for not talking loudly enough —even though I’m not the one with my earbuds in, listening to self-help books. No one asks me when I’m going to get my hair cut. No one leaves their wet swim trunks on the kitchen counter.

The boys in the lab once considered Collin and Ben Johns (above, at the PPA Pro Men’s Doubles Finals in San Clemente in 2023) their pickleball rivals, but the brothers no longer play as a team. Also, Collin and Ben had no idea who the boys in the lab were. (📸 Getty)

And I don’t have to hear their favorite term, “healthy eating,” the definition of which is like a feather on the wind.

One minute they’re gorging on protein, the next they’re strictly no sugar, no carb, no seed oil guys. Then it’s an all cabbage soup week. There was a no-nightshades year, a brief flirtation with the baby food diet; and they’ve done the master cleanse—whatever that is (please don’t tell me). It all seems slightly insane to me, especially when you can just make a nice sandwich.

Or, of course, a salad. But I’ve always suspected that the reason they applied for the job here in the Department of Salad was that it sounded like a diet-y operation to them. And as I’ve mentioned here many times, nothing could be farther from the truth. No one who has met the glorious Cobb Salad would call it “health food”—unless they’re on the Atkins Diet, which the boys may have been at the time.

Back in 2002, Richard Morgan, former chef at the original Brown Derby, taught kids at North Hollywood High to make the restaurant’s signature Cobb salad, as part of a program designed to teach kids “healthy” eating habits. LOL! (📸 Getty)

Anyway, they do all of this in the name of high performance, greater health, improved mental acuity, and glowing visages. And while I’m all for all those things, I honestly believe that the best thing you can do for yourself and for the people around you is to aspire to eat good food that makes you feel great. Every time I aspire to not eat something, like bread, I end up like this:

emilyreesnunn

A post shared by @emilyreesnunn

In my case, the food that makes me feel great just happens to be salad—partly because it’s never the same. There’s no other dish so full of surprises! Many people call salad boring, a bizarre and thoughtless phenomenon that I’ve explored here. But these are often the very same people who will eat a slab of prime rib that covers their entire dinner plate, with nothing but a sprig of parsley, or consume pasta almost every night of the week. Which is fine! I’m glad that it makes them happy.

People whose dinner plates look like this have the nerve to tell me salad is boring. I have nothing against prime rib, but: COME ON PEOPLE!

I just happen to be a lover of jumbles, mishmashes, medleys, hodgepodges, and bits and bobs made from beautiful produce, nuts, cheese, herbs, crispies, and interesting sauces and dressings and dips and spreads—the little culinary potpourris that are often meant to make a boring plate more exciting. All of it makes me happy.

The problem with being around the boys in the lab almost 12 hours a day is that I often find myself eating their way—just to avoid rocking the boat. Sometimes this is to my benefit, as when they’re simply consuming nutritious delicious food rather than some spartan dish from a viral diet they saw on TikTok. I once came into the kitchen to find them eating nothing but bowls of quinoa, which is extremely nutritious and which I love. But I’m not doing that.