Oddities and Obsessions

This salad makes a regular appearance at my house. It looks very summery but I serve it all year long, assuming I can get decent tomatoes.

It's almost not even a recipe because there is nothing to putting it together. Some light chopping, opening a can and pouring the seasoned rice vinegar over the top. But it's so delicious, so flavorful. In fact, this would be enough for me to call it a meal. However, I have a husband who claims it's not a meal without meat. So yeah.

I always have these ingredients in my house. I often run out of lettuce but these ingredients are around...always.

The seasoned rice vinegar is the key (not the regular). It's the perfect dressing and it's so low in calories compared to salad dressing. No oil is needed either. Give it 15 minutes to marinate and you are done. I won't tell you how good it is with crusty garlic bread.

Cucumber, Tomato and Chickpea Salad
Serves: Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 large vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped
1 English cucumber (this is the one without the seeds), chopped
1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (Garbanzo beans)
2 Tablespoons finely chopped red onion
1 cup chilled seasoned rice vinegar (more or less if needed)
freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

In a large bowl gently toss together tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and chickpeas with seasoned rice vinegar. Let sit for 15 minutes to marinate, stirring a couple of times. Season with pepper and serve.

Cathy has her own vineyard and winery in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  She is a food writer for Davis Life Magazine and blogs daily about wine, food and everyday living.  She lives with her husband and two sons.  You can visit her at noblepig.com.

A few years ago my friend Janet said to me “I’m saying yes, yes to everything.”

I thought, wow, Kimberly just said the same thing to me a few months before. She said, “Fredde, I’m saying yes to everything, every single new opportunity, it’s yes.” I didn’t want to be left behind — I prefer no – so I tried to get out of my comfort zone and sometimes, but not all the time, I was going to say “Yes!”

So what did I do? Nothing. Pretty much nothing. But I did say yes when Janet asked if I wanted to join her writing workshop in St. Tropez. That also meant getting to St. Tropez, which was a whole big schlep. My husband and I were planning a trip anyway so we arranged it around this workshop. I headed out alone to Paris, so I could acclimate to the time change. Two days and several croissants later I found my way to the train station. I had been thinking I should buy that ticket ahead of time, but Janet said it would be no problem getting one. Guess what? I was right and was stuck at the station for hours waiting for the next train. Still, I flowed with it, lost a favorite jacket carting my luggage in and out of bathrooms while I waited. But I finally made it, several hours late — and I might finally be over my romantic fantasy about train travel.

First of all, I thought, no, assumed, I was popular, and all kinds of people were going to be asking to take me out to celebrate. I didn’t throw myself a party which I often do, so then I was thinking that some of my party regulars will get that I’m wanting to celebrate with every one of them individually, or in small groups. I’m not popular, I’m delusional.

It started kinda great. Two days before my birthday Robin and Libbie took me for a celebratory dinner at the Palm. Then on my birthday, I woke up to an email from Huffington Post saying the piece I wrote had been posted that day. Which I thought was a great sign because the story I wrote is all about my fear of dying at a young age like my mother. Then a small group of girlfriends met me for lunch on the patio of the Malibu Hotel where I was spending the weekend.   We ate, laughed, and I received some lovely gifts and amazing sentimental notes that I will always cherish. Libbie is re-gifting cards to me from our long friendship. So, there was this loving thing I wrote to her in the 1970’s about how beautiful she is and how much I love her, and on the other side she wrote an update to me. Kimberly wrote a card with words that made me cry (Libbie’s card made me cry too). It was going smoothly.

I have known my friend Vicki since we were twelve. Without being excessively specific, that’s a long, long time. I met her when I got involved with our community theater, where she was already in a play (I was, at that point, just providing a baby doll to serve as a prop) and I knew instantly that she was not only taller, but quite a lot cooler than I was. For the next seven years we were in plays, orchestras, quartets and classes together, and spent a fair amount of recreational time together, too. Her legs alone are taller than all of me, she is a math whiz, she is the only person I know who was simultaneously in band, choir and orchestra, she has a rapier-sharp wit, and (perhaps most important) she is a loyal and kind friend, and a really good mom.

We live in the same place again now, after my years of wandering, and she recently returned from a trip South with a bag of goodies for me including fig jam, barbecue sauce and the unfortunately named “Butt Rub.” (Hereinafter “Stuff.”) Since I am a delicate and ladylike person, it took me a little while to get over the shock of seeing the, um, “Stuff” on my counter. (I am one of those extraordinarily old fashioned mothers who will not allow my kids to say the word “butt,” at least not in my hearing). There is also the inevitable, and probably intentional evocation of Desitin to deal with. I am far, far too pure to live in this world of sin and crudity….