In Dark Winter, Let Citrus Salads Be Your Flashlight 🔦🍊🍋
Have some fennel, too, just because it's perverse and delightful.
I’M PRETTY MUCH AT A LOSS for words this week because—like many of us, I’m sure—all my spare thoughts have naturally made their way back to the tragic, ongoing losses created by the wildfires out in California. I imagine very few of us do not know someone who has lost a lot, or lost virtually everything.
So I won’t try to fill your head with my own feelings about any of it or try to claim that I have recipes that are “healing.” After writing a book that was allegedly about finding comfort food, I can tell you that here’s no way to know what comforts people until you know the parameters of their discomfort, and unless you ask them.
So an aside: During the September 11 attacks, I was living in NYC and volunteered to help in the kitchen of one of the high-end midtown restaurants that were preparing and taking meals down to the rescue workers sifting through the destruction. I remember packing up such beautiful dishes as carrot ginger soup and thick slices of perfectly cooked filet of beef and various elegant vegetables to go with it all. It was probably food the restaurant knew it wasn’t going to be able to serve in the coming days, and it was pretty fancy. But when the delivery people came back from the site, they told us something along the lines of this: They don’t want this food. They don’t really want to stop and eat. And if they do, they want a Quarter Pounder and a Coke with ice and cigarettes. They want more water.
It’s my experience that some people (like me) fall apart in the face of disaster while others become brave and laser-focussed on helping. I wish I were more like them. Those of us who are not brave and heroic can still be helpers, though; if you haven’t found a way, here are some suggestions.
Anyway, it feels like a luxury to be thinking about salads at a time like this, and I want to remember how lucky I am. Here’s a poem by the late Polish Poet Adam Zagajewski that I have returned more than a few times since it was first published in the New Yorker magazine in 2001.
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
By Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
And now I’m going to offer you some citrus (and fennel) recipes that are easy and good and will make you feel a little lighter. I am a citrus super fan, so one of my favorite things to do is prep a lot of fruit to keep in the fridge, for turning into impromptu salads or for a quick bite of sunshine straight out of the container. So luxurious. Here is a very good guide to preparing citrus, including peeling it and turning it into supremes.