Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Winter Blues

Posted February 15, 2010
Find more about salad , blue cheese , bacon
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Look at that wedge! I know it's supposed to accompany a gigantic steak, but we sometimes eat just the salad and call it dinner.

This particular wedge of blue cheese smelled like a speed skater's socks. How can something so stinky be so delicious?

Speaking of revolted: Ben got mayonnaise on his knuckles and screamed.

I know I say "It's like money in the bank" about so many things, but blue cheese dressing in the fridge? It's like money in the bank.

These nuts were a serious inspiration. They'd be good without the smoked paprika, but definitely less bacon-like. Which you might like. Though that would be strange of you.

In the pan, they might seem somewhat unpromising: too clumpy and sticky. Later, they will dry out and be break-upable.

If you served these with drinks, nobody would complain.

Or, right, on the salad, like we talked about.

There are many ways to serve this salad. . .

. . . and they are all delicious.

Around the world, children are bursting with inspiration: their blood is aboil, they are pawing the ground, they are imagining their own bad selves in 4 years, 8 years, 12 years. They are going to shred the slopes! They are going to race like the wind! They are going to whiz past us in a latex blur, into their futures of speed and success! Not my children, of course. We bought one month of cable TV to watch the winter Olympics, and my children alternate between delight and horror. They could not less identify with the drive and ambition of the athletes.

Birdy, rooting for Apolo Ohno, whom she keeps calling Yoko by mistake, decides from her cozy mound of pillows, "I would just let everyone go ahead of me and win so it wouldn't be so stressful." "Plus, the other people want to win more than you, so it's nicer for them," Ben adds, and Birdy says, "Good point." I picture them on the corporate ladder one day, yelling down, "Hey, back up for a sec--I'm just going to scootch over to the side here so you all can get past me." Imagining this, I am not unhappy.

Ben is aghast over the freestyle skiing. "Sheesh, I would never be in the Olympics," he says, "But if I had to be? I would take one look at all those steep lumps and bumps and I would just take my skis off and walk down the mountain." "I know!" Birdy says. "And that poor woman just keeps falling and falling and falling." When we explain instant replay to her, Birdy laughs and says, "Phew."

Other conventions elude them. Commercials, for instance. "There are babies in the Olympics?" Birdy asks, and I have to explain that it's an ad about how mothers always see their kids as little, even when they're grown up and competing. "When you're a karate sensei one day, so fierce and kicking down brick walls, I'm still going to see your rosy little napping face," I say, and she scowls at me.

If Birdy becomes an Olympic figure skater? She's going to wear a sensible jacket. "They must be so chilly in those thin suits! Plus, you can see their whole entire booty. Not the skin of it, but the shape." I don't tell her that the shape of everybody's athletic booty is a vital component of the spandex-era games.

Speaking of gigantic booties, if not Olympic ones: this salad with blue cheese and bacon. A lame segue, I know, but there's a winter story here. I always make this salad around this time of year, February, and I think it's because it gives us a summery lift: it's the salad we get at Moby Dick's clam shack in Wellfleet--the cold wedge we devour in the breezy warmth of the screened porch, everybody sun-flushed and salt-haired and sandy, waiting for their chowder and clam rolls. Nobody but me actually even likes blue cheese, but everybody loves this salad. If we ate it out of a wax-paper-lined plastic basket with plastic forks, it would be even more authentic, but even this way it's delightful and restorative. Plus, iceberg lettuce! "This is too good to be good for you, isn't it," Ben says, munching, and yes, not exactly nutrients galore. But it certainly isn't bad for you.

This recipe makes a ton of salad. If it's just us four eating, I make the full recipe of dressing, but only half the salad. Then, I fry up the rest of the bacon and pack the kids bacon-blue wraps in their lunchboxes: a tortilla rolled around bacon and a handful of shredded, dressed lettuce. It's their absolute favorite school lunch.

And please note the vegetarian option here: smoky maple walnuts instead of bacon. Because I love you, you beautiful, foolish herbivores. I was trying to think of a good substitute for the salty-smoky-sweet crunch of the bacon, and this is what I came up with. They're totally addictive, even if you're not a vegetarian, and Birdy actually preferred them to the bacon. Which wins her the Gold medal for being crazy.

Bacon Blue Salad
serves 8
15 minutes total time

We love the wedges for their Moby-Dick's fanciness, but the truth is that I more often serve the lettuce simply shredded in a bowl with the dressing and bacon. It is way easier to eat, and requires much less involvement of everybody's blue-cheesy fingers.

1 head of iceberg lettuce, cut into 8 wedges
Blue cheese dressing (recipe below)
1 pound bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled, or Smoky Maple Walnuts (recipe below)

Dress the lettuce wedges, top with bacon or walnuts, and serve.

Blue Cheese Dressing
Makes 2 cups

1 cup blue cheese (around 1/4 pound, I like Danish for this), crumbled
1 cup Hellman's or Best Foods mayonnaise (not low-fat)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire (thank you spell check!) sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce, such as Frank's
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a blender or food processor, or with a hand blender, whir all the ingredients together until smooth. Taste for seasoning and serve or chill.

Smoky Maple Walnuts
Makes 1 cup

1 cup walnut pieces
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, then add the walnuts, syrup, and salt, and cook, stirring, for 3-5 minutes until the syrup has cooked away and the nuts are coated and very thickly sticky. Sprinkle over the paprika and cook, stirring, another 30 seconds or so, then cool completely. As the nuts cool, they will become hard and dry. When they're completely cool, break them up and store airtight.

 

Get a printable version of this recipe.

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Winter Blues

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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