Hello November. Your arrival marks the end of the surrealness that was the last half week. Subways are once again open with limited service, supermarkets are operating in full swing, fallen trees are finally being cleared from roads that have been mostly empty for the last few days.
While those of us living in the Brooklyn area were lucky enough to experience very little damage from the hurricane, the pictures tell a different story. I think they’re what lends to the unrealness of the situation: the incongruity between what we witnessed firsthand and the chaos documented elsewhere. Most of you saw a coast that was being battered by unrelenting forces of nature. On the other hand, many of us sat around all of Tuesday night waiting for the power to go out, which didn’t happen, and trees to topple, which did, but only a little.
I feel fortunate that I could tell our friends and family that we were fine. I know that many weren’t as lucky, and my thoughts go out to them.
As soon as the markets re-opened today, I rushed out and bought fresh produce. Because in our rush to pick up emergency supplies, like bottled water and canned beans and vienna sausages (which are dirt cheap compared to Spam—why is that?), we’d forgotten that what we would probably need the most was food to get us through the next couple days.
Hahaha, riiiight.
So, hello November. Let’s start you out right. With a salad, because salads usually do the trick. Especially ones that contain bits of fruit.
Have you ever had a honeycrisp apple? I don’t know how I’ve never heard of them before, because they’re lovely. Maybe because I’ve never been an apple connoisseur; Fujis have always suited me just fine. But I’m seriously digging the crisp/tart/perfect flesh of the honeycrisp. Paired with arugula, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds, not to mention a cider vinegar, honey, and poppy seed dressing, the salad is light and fresh and perky.
For many who were shaken by the storm, light and fresh and perky may be way to start out on the right foot.
HONEYCRISP APPLE SALAD WITH WALNUTS AND PUMPKIN SEEDS
Adapted from The Cozy Apron
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients:
For the vinaigrette:
6 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp finely chopped walnuts
3 Tbsp honey
2 tsp poppy seeds
pinch cumin
salt & pepper to taste
6 Tbsp olive oil
For the salad:
2 cups arugula
4 cups escarole, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 honeycrisp apple, sliced into thin matchsticks
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup roasted walnuts
Directions:
For the vinaigrette, mix all the ingredients but the olive oil together well in a jar with a lid. Pour in the olive oil, close the jar, and shake it until the dressing is emulsified.
For the salad, in a large bowl, combine the arugula, escarole, half the apples sticks, and half the pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Lightly drizzle with the dressing. Serve the salad onto individual serving plates, and garnish each with the remaining apples, pumpkin seeds, and walnuts. Drizzle on more dressing as desired.
Good to hear you survived Sandy relatively unscathed! My friend in Nyack sent me pictures of an enormous tree that miraculously managed to fall in the 20-foot space between her house and the neighbor’s.
The honeycrisps have been ridiculous this year. I don’t even understand. I had one last night that tasted like I was crunching on millions of delicious apple-y ice crystals. I was planning to use part of the bagful in my fridge to make an apple shrub, but now it seems like a shame to use them for anything besides straight eating. Love ‘em in salad!
Were you guys affected at all up in Vermont? Glad to hear that your friend got lucky! There were quite a few fallen trees around my neighborhood… and quite a few cars that had happened to be in their ways.
Hahaha, I usually prefer to eat fruit straight, but your shrubs sound so delicious! What flavors would you pair the apple with?
We were lucky to have next to nothing up here. It was getting really windy late Monday night and when I woke up on Tuesday there was a very ominous cloud over the city, but it had moved off within half an hour. I’ve been seeing so many pictures of uprooted trees on cars and debris everywhere (not to mention grocery store shelves that are completely empty). I cannot even begin to imagine how difficult the clean up effort must be in such a busy area.
Oooo I’ve been thinking about the apple shrub a lot lately, and I’m definitely going to add some ginger, and maybe also a little lemon and thyme. I’ll probably use mostly cider vinegar for the base, but I’m thinking about throwing a little rice vinegar in there too, just for kicks!
Apple and ginger sounds wonderful! You’ll have to let me know how it tastes. I love anything cider-y, and I bet the thyme would add such a great twist.
Glad to hear you guys are doing ok, and that everything is more or less in one piece! This salad sounds like the most gourmet of meals for a power outage. Apple and walnut, oh my!
Yes, all is well. Thanks Eileen!
Glad to hear you were safe from Sandy. The pictures do seem insanely surreal, as an outsider at least. Something very eerie about seeing manhattan blanketed in darkness.
And you’ve never had honeycrisp apples?! They are only my aboslute favorite apples. I’m usually a real snob when it comes to eating apples as they are raw, that I only ever allow myself to eat honeycrisp apples. It’s just that once you try them, there’s no going back… Anyway! Glad you’ve discovered them. I love the idea of an apple salad— that pairing of apples and walnuts with a poppy seed vinaigrette sounds spot on perfect.
Hahaha, no, I’ve never had the fortune of eating honeycrisp apples up until now. I know what you mean though; apples vary so much from variety to variety. Which is probably why I’ve never been a huge fan. But now that I’ve tried lots of new varieties (New York is ground zero for apples, so the farmer’s markets are brimming with different kinds), I definitely like them a lot more.