Send Salads Packing?Yes, Please!π§³ π₯
Dishes that will be there for you when you need them and go where you ask them to go
YOU KNOW WHATβS NICE? Opening the fridge at lunchtime with low hopes and a dark heart and finding something really bright and good in there, which youβd managed to forget about, even though you put it in there just last night. Iβm talking about forgotten leftovers, which are better than finding $20 on the streetβplus you donβt have to worry about the person who lost them, poor guy. (You can worry about why you forgot about them another time.)
But itβs still the case, here in 2025, that if you say the word βsalad,β most people do not conjure the idea of delicious leftovers.
Many of us leafy green stalwarts love to have our slightly wilted salads from last nightβs dinner as our breakfast, but itβs probably safe to say that once the kitchen is cleaned up all around the world, plenty of these types of salads donβt make it into the Tupperware.

Which means they canβt make it to our workplaces the next day, to be lunch.
Which makes me shudder. So Iβm on a newly invigorated quest to locate and/or create salads that are delicious the next day, and that also pack well. Because judging from the news, itβs starting to look like weβre all going to be scrimping on groceries, eating more leftovers, having more lunches at our desks, and making fewer trips to the fancy salad shops we once loved so much (and which, frankly, have been going downhill).
But the state of the world economy aside, Iβve always been a fan of leftovers. In fact, Iβve always fantasized about opening a restaurant that serves nothing but yesterdayβs dinner and another one that serves nothing but lunchbox fare. And Iβm talking not just about food that travels well and wonβt kill you if it sits at room temperature until lunchtime; I want to serve dishes that you can trade with the people sitting at the next table if theirs seem better than yours.
So Iβm excited about my new mission. And for me, grain salads are the first type that come to mind when it comes to designing both menus. Depending on what baubles and prizes you put in them, theyβre salads with fortitudeβthey get better in the fridge overnight (or a couple of nights) and improve in flavor after they come to room temperature. I got the idea to make the one I have for you today when I spotted some pretty Rosa Bianca eggplants at the market. Itβs basically a simplified caponata folded into dressed farro, and it feels like a treat to me. I should mention: this salad is delicious right after itβs made, too.
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