Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Tuesday, 3 December 2002

# 7:40 AM

thanksgiving in brief

Had dinner with parents, sister, and grandmother on both Thursday and Friday. Friday being the first night of Chanukah, my parents gave me a rice cooker. Ate far too much. Made salad.

salad

  • 1 head red endive
  • 1 head yellow endive
  • 1 red onion
  • 2 green apples
  • 1 cup pecans
  • ¾ cup olive oil
  • ¼ cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • ½ tsp mustardseed
  • ½ tsp garlic powder (or 2 cloves garlic)
  • ½ tsp dried basil leaves

Chop up the red and yellow endive into squares about 1" on a side. Slice the onion into rings, then section the rings into fourths. Throw all of this in a bowl and mix. Roast the pecans lightly, then throw them in the bowl with the veggies.

While you're waiting for the pecans to roast, pour the vinegar into a small mixing bowl. Add the garlic powder and basil leaves. (If you're using fresh garlic cloves you'll need to chop them up really fine first.) Mash up the mustardseed and add that too. Wait five minutes, then add the oil very slowly while stirring like mad with a wire whisk, or better yet, an electric eggbeater. You're trying to make an emulsion of the oil and vinegar. It should come out opaque and yellowish-orange.

After you've got an emulsion, taste it. If your wine vinegar is like mine, it'll be way too sour. This is what the honey is for. Add it in small globs, mixing thoroughly and tasting, until it stops being too sour. Now chop up the apples into chunks about ½" on a side, and mix them into the vinaigrette. (This last is not necessary if the salad will be served immediately, but if it will sit for awhile you need to stop the apples from turning brown.)

Just before serving, combine the two bowls of ingredients and toss thoroughly. Assuming your endive is the same size as mine, this will serve four people with enough left over for the next day.

shopping

Another thing I did last weekend was go buy more furniture. I needed another bookshelf, and I also picked up a clothes-drying rack. This is in hopes of not having to trust my clothes to the dryer downstairs or the clothesline on the roof anymore. It's not big enough for sheets but should do for everything else. I am not sure how long it will take for stuff to dry; there's currently a load of laundry hung over it and we'll see how dry it is tomorrow morning.