Pipes, haggis and plaid.

Quick.  Don’t think.  What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say the word bagpipes? What about ‘neeps? Haggis? Scotch? Plaid?

Are you cringing or smiling?

Celery, fennel and radish salad.

Reading.  I can’t imagine a life without it.  Books, magazines, anything.

I’m one of those people who always has a least 3 books and several magazines on the go. A good book (the kind that might have won an award), a trashy book (the kind you could accidentally drop in the tub) and a work type of book (the kind that needs a highlighter).  I especially love reading food magazines.  You know, the kind of magazine you read “just for the articles”.  Food porn so to speak.  I’ve been struggling with my writing lately.  But reading?  I seem to be doing just fine.

Last week I walked into the kitchen to plan dinner.  I had just been reading some of the great book by Dianne Jacobs Will Write for Food and contemplating how to describe  food with different metaphors and similes.  Coincidentally I happened to be eating some candied ginger (this is connected, trust me).  I opened the fridge.  Wow.  What a random bunch of ingredients.  As I perused the available produce I recalled a salad I had tried and discarded.  A few months ago I had discovered a recipe in one of my many piles of magazines for a celery and fennel salad dressed with just olive oil and salt (my apologies that I absolutely can not seem to find the article so am unable to give credit).  We had tried it and thought average.  Not good, not bad, just there.  Light and refreshing, but no zing.  Suddenly however I had all of these creative juices swimming around in my brain (and ginger zinging around my mouth) and thought I can make this better.  The result was a celery, fennel and radish salad with a candied ginger and meyer lemon dressing.  It’s still a work in progress, but I think it’s pretty good.  Better at least than my similes and metaphors.

The lightness of it makes it work well as an accompaniment to a heavier meal.  But, I think it works best as something to build a lunch around.  Add chickpeas, quinoa or white beans and toss it in a container for work.  Saute some fresh shrimp with some ginger and lemon, add it to the salad and serve over some spinach or arugula.  Or try mixing it in with some tuna salad served in a pita or wrap.

While I go work on my writing please enjoy.  Happy reading.

Ingredients

• 6 stalks celery
• 1/2  bulb fennel
• 5-10 radishes

For the dressing:

• 2 meyer lemons (regular lemons will work too)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 5 small pieces of candied ginger, finely chopped
• 1/4tsp dried ginger
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method

Chop celery and fennel into, relatively uniform, bite size pieces. Slice or chop the radishes. Place all vegetables in a bowl.

To make the dressing squeeze the juice of the lemons into a jar (I like mason jars).  Add the remaining ingredients.  Put a lid on it and shake.

Combine dressing with vegetables.  This salad is ideal if the flavours can meld at least for a few hours.

A sunny citrus salad.

New years resolutions.  Goals.  Affirmations.  Call them what you will, it’s pretty hard at this time of year to avoid them.  Whether you make them or eschew the whole idea, it’s fairly common following the holidays to want to eat a little healthier.  After the excesses of the last few weeks, like it or not, most of us could stand to dial it back a bit on the fat/richness/carb factor in our meals.

One of my continued goals in 2012 is to eat locally sourced food as often as possible.  The problem is that the one thing I always want at this time of year is citrus.  Which of course couldn’t be less local for me if it tried.  Now I confess, I eat lemons like they are going out of style all year, but come the winter months I crave ruby red grapefruit and oranges.  I blame it on all the ordering of Florida citrus we did as band fundraisers growing up (is that an Eastern thing?)

Post holiday thoughts.

Holiday season proper is over and I confess I’m a bit sad.  I love the holidays.  The decorating, the chaos, the shopping, the cooking….pretty much all of it.  Whether you celebrated Christmas, lit candles for Hanukkah, celebrated another religious time or perhaps just enjoyed a bit of time off from the daily grind, I hope you had a wonderful one. Mine was great.  There was all the usual.  The parties, the turkey, the indulgences (eek – that’s another blog!) but to be fair it was the little things that really made it special.

It was the rose blooming in my garden two days before Christmas.

The funny little tableau of cookie cutters left for me by my husband on an especially busy day.

The quirkiness of the cats on Christmas morning.

Audrey - ready for her closeup?

The non-family family Christmas dinner that actually had real family this year too – Hi Mom!

The "place rock" I've had since my first holiday meal at a friends house in Vancouver.

The walk we took on the last day of 2011 to say thank you for the year past and to make dreams for 2012.

And oh, so much more.

There are lots of changes coming in 2012 (some are already well underway), but while those posts wait to get written, thanks to all of you you helped make the small (and big) moments special last year.  I wish you all well for what is ahead.

Happy new year friends.