KALE MICROGREENS AND KIWI BERRIES

 

"It was during these long trips that she began writing a great deal again. The landscape, the strange life stimulated her. It was then that she began to love the valley of the Rhone, the landscape that of all landscapes means the most to her. We are still here in Bilignin in the valley of the Rhone."                            - Gertrude Stein 

    The produce guy, a bit in a rush but polite, said eat them as is. Kiwi berries are in season, and they are also those one-of-a-kind ingredient (perhaps to lift the richness of a Spanish rice-tomato-saffron stew), or a ready addition to any salad greens you can mix pleasing it even more. They look exactly like olives, though without the oil sheen and out of the required juice bath; they are olive green in color, ripe and bursty. I love them. Lately I haven't been seasoning any of my food (my nutritionist recommended raw intakes), and just the same I allow my food to interlace themselves independent of dressing binding and simply interact on their own on the palate of the mouth naturally. In the case of my salad today, that's the idea: the diminutive peppery-bitterness of the kale shoots with the semi-tropical sweetness of the berries melded not surprisingly well. Fruits in salads are, to me, culinary tradition's most harmonious pairs. Imagine a Mexican rice smothered in a roja-smoky sauce with kiwi berries and flash-fried corn. I think that's marvelous.

"The transition from summer to fall is one of our favorite times of the year. Yes, it opens the door for the fall harvest and the abundance of goodies that come with it, dreaming about stews and serving up long-simmered braises and soups."                                 - Your friends at The Splendid Table   

    The last time I hosted and cooked for a Thanksgiving party with friends at my Manhattan apartment, ca. fall of 2015, a cornucopia of fruits and nuts (tagine-style) were abundantly slow-roasting in the oven over my main centerpiece dish for twelve hours, and the aromatics in the air had a Mediterranean osmosis in my place. Chestnuts, cashews, dates, apples, green olives, apricots, orange peel, cloves, garlic. The alchemy is evolved. My glamorous guests raved about the tagine for days after; a techy from India, by way of the Microsoft Campus at Redmond, WA, couldn't stop calling me about it for the recipe. I am honestly serious. Well, the likes of gastronomy-trained cooks will tell you this (in response to his request): "Come back to another of my party's next year and I will cook it again for you. It can't be replicated. Its "landscape" won't allow." A Japanese makeup artist friend (for the fashion industry) living in Spanish Harlem at that time, brought that evening a host gift of vintage coupe glassware its fire-blown discoloration proved its antiquity and style. I loved it. She ingratiated: Make me your famous sezerac, darling, and make us all happy.