Salad-Adjacent Treats To Share!

Plus, two big salads to eat, of course

Vishwesh Bhatt’s divine Collard Green Slaw

WHO AMONG US WOULD NOT LOVE to have a ton of money? Especially during the holidays. Notice I didn’t say two tons? Or three. Because that would just be greedy. And greed is so tacky, isn’t it?

It’s especially tacky to those of us who do not have a ton of money.

Still, I occasionally allow myself to wonder what kind of person I would be if I were—I don’t know—the 12th or 13th richest person in the world? I’d be much better dressed. And I might not be quite so openly embarrassed for multibillionaires who shoot themselves into space to eat skittles with their friends, then brag in Vogue magazine via their girlfriends about their commitment to the environment, after building a 500-million-dollar yachts so big that it can only be docked alongside cargo carriers and oil tankers.

There’s a reason they call money “cabbage.”

From what I can gather, when you are that rich and see someone else eating skittles in space, rather than making you roll your eyes and worry about the fate of the planet it makes you competitive. (Skittles, hell. I’m going to eat an entire spiral-cut Honey Baked Ham in space.)

Down here on my level, I have no such pressures to outdo anyone. I would describe myself as not a big shopper, but also not an ascetic monk (although I have lived a somewhat monk-like existence in past years). I even try to be realistic about my own pious claims of anti-consumerism—just not as realistic as I am about yours. When I hear someone fire off one of those soul-cleansing aphorisms like “When you have your health you have everything,” the thing that I ostentatiously notice is that they appear to have a lot more in the bank than just excellent bloodwork.

Vishwesh Bhatt’s Collard Green Slaw dressing is full of paprika and hot sauce.

Plus, I have been extremely sick and am now quite healthy and during both periods of my life I have desperately wanted cute new boots.

Human nature is confusing! Especially when it comes to money and especially this time of year, when many of us who are supposed to be reveling in spiritual stuff might instead be secretly taking stock and comparing.

And I’m human. So I will admit that I might have just said to myself: I wouldn’t mind a little spaceship or some glittery pants. Which opened some weird gate in my brain and let my greed-imagination really gallop. The next thing I knew I was Jeff Bezos’s partner on Dancing with the Stars, both of us in unitards, doing jazz hands.

Napa cabbage for Hélène’s All-White Salad, from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table

So in general, I make myself rich by making my desires few—and also by having a runaway imagination that always goes straight to the worst possible scenario.

Plus, I have an excellent memory, which randomly recalls wonderful things I have loved that cost me nothing—like the smooth, flat, oval stone that fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, picked up on a beach in San Fruttuoso many many years ago. Somewhere along the way, it disappeared from my belongings. And I wish I could get it back, because it helped me remember a very happy time in my life. I loved it so much. But I still have a cherished empty bird’s nest that I plucked from a tree while living in rural North Carolina and my crazy (also empty and also cherished) hornet’s nest that hung over my kitchen island where I used to live and now hangs over my dining table.

My hornet’s nest dangling over my kitchen island in my old apartment.

So any time I do start to wish for the sparkly pants or diamond salad spinners or even bigger bigger bigger things, I remember that I rarely stay attached to the flashy or the large. Or even the comfortable. (I have a storage space full of fancy stuff that was once a very big part of my life and that simply stopped meaning much to me.)

But I never stop cherishing the bits and bobs I’ve collected, the small but lovely objects whose value, rather than world renowned, might be a secret that only I know. Things that give my life some solid emotional sparkle.

All of which is my lead-in to let you know that in addition to two salads, as expected, I have culinary bits and bobs for you—some famously delicious rosemary nuts to nibble and a recipe for homemade hazelnut dukkah to sprinkle on everything. Both are memorably delicious, easy to make, and might be nice to bring to a party as a hostess gift or to slip into someone’s coat pocket as you say goodbye after meeting for holiday drinks. (Put them in a pretty jar or zip-loc bag first, please haha.)

This Granny Smith apple and two more went into Hélène’s All-White Salad, from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table

The salads I have today are from two cookbooks that, although I’m not doing a gift list this year, would make super presents. And of course, so would a GIFT SUBSCRIPTION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SALAD. See the button ⬇️⬇️⬇️?

(Here’s last year’s Department of Salad gift list, in case you’re still casting about; it holds up. And if you’re looking for 2023 cookbook presents, I really love this roundup from the New York Times, a few of which we’ve featured here.