My sister would be very pleased with me tonight ...
There I was in the kitchen, an enormous plate of undressed salad and I had run out of olive oil. Particular as I am, I was determined not to run down to the local store to get some, preferring instead to hold out for a trip to Eataly and find the bottle I like (I can't say for certain that it tastes better than the olive oil down at the local store. Put them together in a taste-test and I'm not sure which one I would go for but, the reason I'm holding out for the bottle from
is because, well, the label is pretty. Aye. The simple things). I rummaged around behind the vinegars and the peanut oil and the sunflower oil and found a far too well-aged bottle of balsamic dipping sauce that had been there for a while, gave it a good shake and a little taste. Foul. Gone, no way I was putting that on my salad (arugula from the farmer's market, the big, chunky, vibrant arugula that Mark Bittman was talking about
in the New York Times Magazine -- I have to admit I felt a little chuffed to have bought if before he wrote it -- and some pea shoots and some snow peas and cucumber, with mint, fresh from the fire escape).
What to do? Honey I thought, honey and lemon, so I put a bit of honey in a bowl and squeezed a bit of lemon... tasted it. All right but far too much like honey and lemon as cold remedy for my salad. So I looked some more. Sesame seeds. Dropped a few in and thought, hmm, tastes good, but needs a little soy sauce so pulled that out of the fridge. A little bit of soy sauce in with the honey, the lemon and the sesame seeds and yes indeed. Tasty.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that this was quite a monumental occasion for me. Creating something out of nothing in the kitchen...the way real cooks do it. A bit of this, a bit of that, this goes with that and there you go, something delicious for you to eat and no, I didn't use a recipe. Not sure when it will happen again.