Go for the gold: The Salads You Desire

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Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

The Salads You Desire

Sam Sifton

Good morning. I made a no-recipe gumbo with my turkey leftovers and the stock that emerged from them, allowed it to cure for a day, then froze four quarts of the stuff separately for use over the winter. (Easy work: a Cajun mirepoix — equal parts onion, bell pepper and celery — to which I added garlic, then a beautiful mahogany roux made from neutral oil and flour, my shredded turkey, the collagen-rich stock, some thyme and paprika.) Then I swore off turkey for a few weeks and set to work on a no-recipe recipe for dinner and probably for a couple of lunches this week: kimchi grilled cheese.

It, too, is simple cooking: a grilled cheese made as you usually make a grilled cheese, but with kimchi in the mix where some might add bacon or tomato. I liked it with Cheddar and daikon kimchi. I loved it with mozzarella and Napa cabbage kimchi. I think I might try a kimchi Reuben next. Won’t you join me?

I’d understand if not. Some are seeking respite from fats and richness in right now, before the holidays return and with them the impulse to make cookies and roasts. For them, for you, may I suggest this marinated celery salad with chickpeas and Parmesan (above)? Or this robust seaweed salad? I do enjoy a scallop salad, myself.

Three-cup chicken might be a good play this week. Likewise, three-cup vegetables. I love this Melissa Clark recipe for sheet-pan crisp tofu with sweet potatoes. Also, this Pierre Franey one for linguine with lemon sauce. And holy cannoli, this ginger-cauliflower soup from Yewande Komolafe? It is luxuriously creamy, though it contains no cream at all. Serve as she suggests, with buttered toast.

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Now, it’s nothing to do with crisp greens and silky vinaigrettes, and I’m late to it to boot, but if you haven’t read James McBride’s “Deacon King Kong” yet, that’s a task you should undertake immediately.

While you’re at it, you should read Michael Adno on the strange market for palmetto berries in Florida, in The Guardian.

I’ve found so much interesting stuff in Sasha Frere-Jones’s newsletter, including this recording of Patti Smith’s first public performance, on Feb. 10, 1971, at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan.

Finally, absolutely, read Kelefa Sanneh in The New Yorker, on Saturday night’s fight between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. (“Like two of my uncles fighting at the barbecue,” Snoop Dogg observed.) I’ll be back on Friday.