I recently got to hear Nigella Lawson speak at the Opera House.
What a night it was, listening to this amazing lady, (who refuses to admit she has a food empire!) share of her journey with food and her desire to champion the home cook.
“No human being should be ill at ease in the kitchen” was one of many quotable quotes from her that night, interspersed with her obvious love of using store-bought stock and frozen peas in her recipes wherever possible! She’s the real deal that lady.
Inspired to reconnect with her cookbooks, I started reading Forever Summer again, one of her early cookbooks.
It was this paragraph that I related to as I now blog about my home cooking journey and share it with you all.
“If at anytime I’m still wondering if this or that particular recipe is worth keeping, I set myself a scene – a friend, a reader, a fellow mother at the school gate, is coming up to me, telling me that she is going to cook my something-or-other. If I’m not filled with impatient, evangelical enthusiasm at the imagined exchange, and if that recipe doesn’t also inspire in me unwavering, bossy confidence, then out it goes. I want to write only about the food I love, and I want you to love it too.”
I couldn’t agree more.
This salad I found by accident.
After begging my friend Rebecca for one of her dessert recipes, I was excited to receive my photocopy from her. Scrawled in handwriting at the bottom of this photocopy, was the recipe for this salad. I read it and thought that sounds beautiful, but the photocopy was filed in DESSERTS in my overflowing recipe folder and it was a while till I remembered to look at it again.
Fast forward to the day of our office Christmas Party. My husband, the fearless leader, was taking his team out on the harbour sailing and my job was to feed them all day!
After filling lots of portable containers with salads, meats, snacks and desserts and transporting it to the boat, I was reminded by one of the team, that most of the men on our staff didn’t actually like or eat salad! Imagine my joy…..
As often happens, this salad was inhaled by our team as we sat moored in a bay off Pittwater.
“Can you please give this recipe to my mum?” said one of the team. “This is going to be the only salad I eat from now on.”
I smiled and happily emailed it later to his mum.
So it’s been called ‘Rebecca’s salad’ by me, then it’s been called ‘Emma’s salad’ and now, finally, it will be known as the Sweet Potato and Cashew Salad.
I’ve made it as a side dish many times, but we’ve also had it for lunch and dinner, with a piece of grilled meat on the side.
Go forth and try it and maybe a non-salad eater in your life just might love it too.
