Salad

The summer is almost over (with 2 weeks left to it), but the summer food does not have to go. Summer comes with all these fresh veggies at their peak of ripeness giving us endless possibilities for creative cooking, that does not have to be confined in the salad making. In this recipe I am making a dish that is largely inspired by a Raw Food class I recently attended in New York City. The class is regularly offered in California by Gisselle Gordon, but if you are lucky you might catch Gisselle in one of her trips. My views on Raw Food as a diet perspective are outlined in the previous posts, but regardless the fact that I largely disagree with the claims, I cannot overlook the taste aspects of it especially what it comes loaded with fresh ingredients in a way you have never seen before. This is actually a great way to few all these diets, focus on the taste and the appearance of the food, don't dismiss them just because you don't agree with their claims. It is called being open-minded, and in the culinary world it can take you very very far.

The last few years there is a growing number of grains that have hit the market. Many of them have been around for a while (a few thousand years) but their nutritional value was hardly been recognized. In their majority they emerged as an alternative to the existing grains that recently have been under the gun for not being as healthy as we though they were. A major concern is gluten. Gluten is a form of tough network of proteins that is created by the cross-linking of gliadin and a gluten with the help of water. Both gliadin and a glutenin are in abundance in many grains, primarily in wheat, rye and barley. Several people have a immunogenic response to it, in which the body recognizes several molecules (gliadin in this case) as an intruder. This is causing a cascade of effects that can lead to unpredictable results. This is considered part of the Celiac Disease and is not recognized as an allergy due to the unusual response of the body ranging from stomach cramps to joint pains.

Since it is summer, I am more keen in making and creating dishes, that are summery and fresh that combine a large number of various elements: texture, flavors and engage all the senses. This is what I making today. A take on a bruschetta, the italian delicacy that is been around since the 15th century. It was a fun recipe since it is largely similar to the the previous post in regards to the ingredients. It showcases that sam ingredients put together in a different way results in such a different result.As you probably noticed on the title next to the bruschetta is a question mark. Why? Because I think that in the melting culinary pot in america many cuisines were merged, fused, combined and unavoidably either lost their origin meaning or got a load of new ingredients, that changed drastically their appearance and flavor profile.

I will start today a series of post that will be randomly posted through the summer, highlighting foods that are perfect fro the summer, either because the ingredients are available through the summer very cheap and at the pick of their ripeness, or because they are refreshing and summery. The first one is probably one of the simplest salads I ever conceived and it can be made in matter of minutes. As is true with those dishes, quality of the ingredients maters. Buy fresh, preferably locally and don ‘t fear to shed some extra bucks for organic products. As, typical in this blog, it is really important to take some time and talk about the star of the dish, which is the red onion for today.

This is going to be a short entry and I will have it here, just because is the perfect compliment to the dish I described right before, the butternut squash raviolis. First however lets see what is a salad. Usually a salad is a dish that mostly, or exclusively, contains vegetables, usually in a cold state, hold together by a liquid that again usually contains a form of fat, and an acid. You see that the salad is very well, but also very loosely defined. That ‘s the meaning of the world usually. But I have develop some gold guidelines on how a salad should be made, or what it should contain. I think of it as the yin-yang of the food world. So let ‘s see the so notorious golden rules.