We’ve hit the part of January when I actively start daydreaming about sunnier, warmer locales. As I pull on my wool toque, oversize coat and heavy boots (if you’re imagining the younger brother in “A Christmas Story,” you’re not far off), I’m thinking about sun hats, short sleeves and heavy pours of orange wine.
This is starting to show in my cooking, of course. I remain committed to warming soups and stews, but I’m working in bursts of brightness — adding an extra strip of lemon peel in Andy Baraghani’s chicken thighs with chickpeas and dates, say, or selecting the largest dried guajillo chiles for Paola Briseño-González’s camarones al ajillo (shrimp in garlic and guajillo sauce).
Yasmin Fahr’s new salmon with avocado and cilantro salad is absolutely vibrant, an easy dish full of invigorating flavors, all green: lime, scallion and jalapeño. The leafy salad element can be either watercress, baby arugula or baby spinach; I love the pepperiness and curly tangle of watercress and how it keeps a little structure even when it wilts a touch from the heat of the salmon. This is just the dinner to offset an afternoon spent shoveling snow or slip-sliding on icy sidewalks.
I know, my mouth is watering, too. Time to go make some of Genevieve’s black sesame shortbread to tide me over until next week. See you then!
