The Salty Spoon

Do you know what I have spent the past several weeks doing? I mean, aside from working and traveling and playing with my iPhone. I have been dealing with the fact that the dumbest of our three cats (which, really, is a dubious distinction) has a new-found and insatiable attraction to all power cords. As in, he wants to chew through them.

In some ways, this discovery has been a relief. I now know that I wasn’t crazy to think that the phone on my nightstand was just plain dead. Only instead of the rigor that eventually seizes all things with rechargeable batteries, this was the kind of deadness that comes when someone chews clean through the phone line to its base. Same for the keyboard on my desk. And the Kindle charger. Make that two Kindle chargers.

We have sprayed everything with Bitter Apple. We have replaced some cords and patched others with electrical tape. And we have embarked on an extended campaign of terror with respect to Charlie and these damned cords. The goal is to get him to think that cords are bad and scary and yucky and not interesting to chew. Sometimes, this campaign involves spraying him with water. Sometimes it involves waving a cord around and yelling in a menacing way. Sometimes it involves bringing him near a cord he has just chewed and smacking the cord whilst shouting BAD BAD BAD BAD. And sometimes – like, say, this afternoon – it involves all of the above.

He’s a fundamentally sweet cat, and he’s impossibly cute (see above - the perpetrator at rest), so it’s hard to stay mad at him. I would just appreciate it if he could postpone indefinitely his efforts towards a self-induced electrocution so I could spend more of my scarce free time in the kitchen and less of it crawling around spraying all of our cords with foul-tasting substances. (If you ever think you don’t have much in the way of electronics in your home, try coating the length of every cord with something wet and messy – you will be amazed).

One of the things I try to do with this site is provide a real-world glimpse into one approach to balancing a hairy schedule with a pattern of regular cooking. And it is, indeed, a pattern. A habit, even. I’ve become so entrenched in my preference for cooking dinner at home that I gravitate toward my kitchen even on nights when dinner doesn’t show up on the radar until after 9. Of course, I’m human and not a cooking automaton. Sometimes I’m just plain tired and hungry. Sometimes I need dinner to come together in a matter of minutes. And sometimes I need it to be an act of mixing rather than actual cooking.

Here is a trio of salads that, when put together as an ensemble, make a truly lovely dinner with absolutely minimal effort. Everything here, save the produce, are pantry/fridge staples in our house. If they aren’t staples in your kitchen, they should be. The first recipe comes from the lovely Molly Wizenberg of Orangette. The second is a variation on that theme. The third is a bit of a grownup’s approach to the mayonnaise-and-pickle-relish tuna salad we all know and love. The quantities here will handsomely feed two ravenous adults, or four with more demure appetites. All of it can be easily doubled, as well as tweaked and augmented to suit your taste. Think of these recipes as guidelines rather than strict prescriptions.

Chickpea Salad

Adapted from Orangette

Ingredients
1 can (15.5oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
Juice from a hearty squeeze of half a lemon
1 ½ t olive oil
Salt to taste
¼ cup freshly grated hard cheese of your choice (I like pecorino)

Rundown

• Dump everything in a bowl
• Mix
• Cover and refrigerate

Be sure to thoroughly rinse your chickpeas – you want them to be clean and perfect, not slimy. Pour them in a medium bowl and add everything else. Start with a pinch of salt; taste everything once you’ve got it all mixed together and see if you need more salt.

Cover and let the flavors mingle while you make the other salads.

Tomato and Hearts of Palm Salad

Ingredients
1 can hearts of palm, drained
3 or 4 plum tomatoes
1 ½ t olive oil
Salt to taste
¼ cup freshly grated hard cheese of your choice (I like pecorino)

Rundown

• Slice the tomatoes and hearts of palm
• Dump everything in a bowl
• Mix
• Cover and refrigerate

Do you see a pattern here? This is the same salad as above, just with a different main event.

Slice the hearts of palm into little, bite-sized disks and scoot them into a medium bowl. Cut the tomatoes into little wedges – I prefer eighths, but you can go for quarters if you want a chunkier vibe. Add everything else as you did with the chickpea salad and mix. Taste for salt (it’s highly unlikely you’ll need to add much more than a pinch because of the tomatoes, but test it anyway), adjust as needed.

Cover and add to the flavor mingling party in the fridge while you work on the last salad.

Tuna Salad for Grownups

Ingredients
1 small apple (gala or braeburn work nicely; don’t do anything silly like a red delicious)
7 oz albacore tuna packed in water
2 T crumbled feta
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme (or a generous dash of dried thyme if you don’t have fresh)
1 T balsamic vinegar
Splash of olive oil

Rundown

• Peel and dice the apple
• Drain the tuna
• Dump everything in a bowl
• Mix
• Cover and refrigerate

Peel the apple and dice it into tiny pieces. If it feels like you are ending up with a ton of apple, save a quarter of it for snacking while you work.

Drain the tuna, but not so much that it gets excessively dry. You want a little bit of the water to stick around – it should be moist but not soupy. Add the diced apple, feta, thyme, vinegar, and a little splash of olive oil. A splash, not a glug. Stir everything well and taste. Does it need more oil? More feta? More balsamic vinegar? Let your taste buds be your guide. This is very much something you should tinker with to suit your preference.

The feta will probably take care of your need for salt, but if not, hit it up with a shake of some nice sea salt.

Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.