Glorious Food

If there are no TJ's in your part of the world, send me some e-mail by clicking the handy button on your left and maybe I'll pick up some for you on my next trip out there. It rocks that hard.

Now, the thing: Fig Balsamic Vinegar. It's sweet, so a very small amount with some good olive oil will simply dress your salad. The flavor is strong enough that it stands up to ubiquitous field greens. The sweetness is dark the same way proper chocolate is dark; there's also a bite, and this vinegar has a bit of texture, thanks to the figs.

Let's get one thing straight: fresh figs are just about the most sublime things on the planet. Like many fruits, they are verboten in my current diet. However, I'm using my own judgment on the vinegar because any dish you were going to use it on would require so little; I assume the dietician was serious when she said that little tiny bits of things that I love would be OK. This seems to be an excellent way to have a little bit of fig. I am going to get a nice, flavorful nutty oil when I can find one, mix the fig vinegar with it and try that over chopped tart apple and sweet pear. I think that would be good.

What I had for dinner tonight: Tuna Salad with Wheat Toast Points

One can low-sodium tuna
juice of half a lemon
white pepper, coarsely ground
No Salt "Spike" seasoning blend, about 1/2 t.
onion, finely chopped, about 1/4 c.
fresh dill, finely chopped, about 1 t.
mayonnaise, about 2 T.
salad greens of your choice, about 1 c.
olive oil
fig balsamic vinegar

Open tuna, place in medium-sized bowl. Squeeze lemon evenly over the tuna, catching seeds in your fingers as you squeeze. Grind pepper (yes, white pepper tastes different than black pepper. You should have a separate mill for white pepper.) and sprinkle Spike to taste. Chop onion and dill, stir into tuna mixture; let the whole thing sit for a few minutes. If you're having toast, now would be a good time to stick the bread in the toaster.

Prepare your salad greens, which can be as simple as opening Salad in a Bag; place the greens in a clean bowl and toss with oil and vinegar until they are evenly coated.

Stir mayonnaise into tuna mixture. Remove toast from toaster and cut if desired; I like small triangles. Place salad over a dinner plate, heap tuna in the middle; flank with toast points. I had a cup of plain hot tea with mine, but I think a dry white wine, possibly a fume blanc, would go well with this summer meal, if you're so inclined.

This served one person who's supposed to eat a lot of protein, but in most cases I think it would serve two, if you add more greens and toast.

This was a wholly enjoyable dinner, even though I ate by myself.

A note about the toast: I used Big Sky Honey Wheat, which I get down at the Yes! Natural Food store. You can use anything you want, but it should be reasonably dense. If you must have white bread, try getting a baguette and toasting slices of that in the oven.

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The sky is lavender right now. It's weird, but extremely cool.

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It's interesting to read the diaries of people you know in real life. Sometimes you find that you don't know them as well as you thought, other times you just get to know how people are when you're not interrupting them. Chinacat is one of those people. She's one of the people who proved to me that it is possible to be generally happy but still intellectually and spiritually respectable. By that I mean that she honestly seems content sometimes, but one never, ever gets the impression that she's happy because she doesn't know any better. Quite the oppposite, actually.

It's remarkable to me that anybody can think about things and occasionally come out satisfied with her conclusions. Before I met Ellen, I wasn't sure that it was entirely possible to have a brain and a heart; now I am.

before - after