The Sacred Art of Eating

Just after my exams and term finished, at the end of May, I had the pleasure-finally- of attending Taste of Edinburgh. Previously house moves and holidays have kept me away, but I was not to be beaten a third year running.

Those of you with keen memories will recall my excitedly posting that I could now blog from my mobile…and then falling mysteriously silent. Well the excitement had been partly at the thought of live-food-blogging, a dish by dish account, from Taste. It wasn’t to be. Wordpress, sort yer iPhone app out!

Lots of things happened at Taste, mostly revolving around eating free samples. However, partly to escape the cold, the girls and I ended up watching a cookery demonstration. It was given by Annette Sprague of Redwood in Stockbridge. Now those who know me well will know I am a big fan of Calistoga- was there to be room for a second Californian restaurant in my life?

Annette was a very endearing chef to watch, largely because she clearly wasn’t a seasoned pro in giving demonstrations. She was a wee bit chaotic and thrown by the kit available to her. I liked this; she reminded me of me. The recipe she made, for a Californian salad, seemed not-so-appealing as we watched her cook it on a dreich May day. It poured with rain just after she finished. However, I was intrigued, and, when the sun came out a few nights later, made it for D.

This is a Chicory, Asparagus and Proscuitto Salad. Or, to give it its proper name and a link to the recipe, Shaved Asparagus Salad with Chicory, Crispy Proscuitto & Lemony Vinagrette- how awesome they are for publishing this!

It has raw asparagus in it. Somehow, despite growing up in a home which grew its own asparagus, I had somehow never eaten it raw. Annette used chicory (with a lovely story about a Kurdish friend fighting with her sisters over who got to eat the heart, ‘the sweetest bit of the thing’ yet the very bit we throw away as bitter) a leaf I’ve always been a bit wary of- I mean, it’s so unergonomic! However the idea here was to slice it to much the same shape as the asparagus, which you could julienne with a mandoline if you had such a thing but if not, slice into very slim lengths. Harder than you might think!

The dressing has more ingredients than I’d ordinarily use- olive oil, vinegar, mustard, honey- I’d probably use one of those flavourings with oil- and Annette taught us a neat trick of using a bit of salad leaf to test the dressing- like dipping a bit of chicory in to see if the seasoning is okay. So obvious but sometimes you need told these things.

The other oddness to this recipe was the addition of a microplane-grated hard-boiled egg to the salad dressing. I don’t know where she gets this from either! But wowee it works.

All in- despite weird egg additions and excess veg in forms I’m not sure about, this pushed all of my salady buttons. I ended up making it when the girls from DGS came over for dinner again a week later. Now the asparagus season is done, and I shall have to wait another year. Counting down the days! Perhaps in the meantime I’ll have to check out Redwood…just don’t tell Calistoga!

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