SALAD for a HUNGRY CROWD
Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad (I substituted Israeli Couscous for the elusive Wheat Berry)
This Post almost didn’t meet the Friday deadline because I was waiting for this feed back.
“Oh, Mrs. Hirsch, that salad was great. We all loved it”
“Do you think I could have the recipe?”
“The dressing was just right, not too much. So often there’s too much dressing on a salad.”
“The tomatoes, avocados and hard-boiled eggs were perfect with it.”
It’s America’s Fourth of July Weekend. The Gant, where I live, is bursting at its seams with all 140 condos occupied by owners or paying customers. It’s a demanding weekend for the young people who work the front offices. That’s why I decided to make this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad, for their lunch today. Keeping in mind that hungry kids will look favorably on almost anything that’s freshly homemade (think of Mom), they do take seriously the responsibility of critiquing my “Dorie” recipes. No negatives this week, however. This hearty-meal-in-a-bowl, is a true winner.
An Aspen Food & Wine Festival classic coversation,”The Chef & the Rancher”, with (l to r) Chef Chris Cosentino, businesswoman Anya Fernald, Chef Mario Batali and Editor Dana Cowin.
One adaption. Not only was there no fireworks display on Aspen Mountain this week (too dry), there also was no wheat berry to be found in local grocery stores. I easily substituted Israeli Couscous for Wheat Berry. Other grains, like quinoa and farro, would work also. What makes this extra-delicious is the Dijon mustard vinaigrette. Besides the tuna and grain, the many veggies – celery, onion, bell pepper, greens, tomatoes, avocado – in addition to an apple and hard-boiled eggs, make for a substantial and colorful salad.
Here’s the recipe.
Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs, hard at work during the Grand Tasting at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival.
Just because I have not written about Aspen’s 31st Food & Wine Festival, which took place in mid-June, doesn’t mean I won’t. During the next few Posts, I will comment – providing my goods, bads and uglies.
Let me start by saying the two most impressive, forward-thinking speakers/chefs I heard were Anya Fernald and Marcus Samuelsson. No one else, to my thinking, came close.
Following Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s cooking class entitled “Meatball Master” at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Fernald is the CEO of several innovative agricultural companies in California, Belize and Uruguay. As the San Francisco Magazine wrote earlier this year, Belcampo, one of those companies, is “the retail arm of a larger operation unlike any other in the United States — one that includes not just a storefront but also a 10,000-acre farm in Shasta Valley and a slaughterhouse designed by animal welfare expert Temple Grandin. As chief executive officer of this multilayered business, Fernald enjoys a luxury unknown to other sustainably minded meat producers: control of every step in an animal’s march to market. Forget farm-to-table. Think of it as pasture-to-processing-to-plate.
‘We’re pretty much going balls to the wall here,” Fernald says. “But if you want to do the right thing while delivering a consistently superior product, that’s the way to do it. You’ve got to own more of the supply chain.’ ”
Chef Marcus Samuelsson talking with food writer Corby Kummer at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival 2013
I knew little about Samuelsson, the owner and executive chef at Red Rooster Harlem. In 1995 he became the executive chef at Aquavit, the famed Scandinavian restaurant in Manhattan and went on to win numerous culinary awards including being crowned a champion on both Top Chef Masters and Chopped (which, unfortunately, I don’t watch so am clueless about these honors).
Samuelsson was arguably the most accessible celebrity chef at the F&W, willing to hang around after his appearances to answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures. No fan was left wanting. He also participated in a one-on-one conversation at this week’s Aspen Institute’s annual Ideas Festival 2013. He was interviewed by Corby Kummer, a Senior Editor at the Atlantic magazine and one of the most widely read, authoritative, and creative food writers in the United States. The topic was “Cooking and Eating Your Way to a New Community,” which was an underlying theme at the F&W Festival also and one I will discuss often. I encourage you to read, Yes, Chef, Samuelsson’s bestselling memoir. Called “One of the great culinary stories of our time,” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, I just received a copy, my bedtime reading tonight.
Chef Thomas Keller being interviewed at the AllClad Booth at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Hopefully you’ll make Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad for your friends or family this summer. To see how my colleagues felt about this week’s recipe, go here. This salad was an assignment for French Fridays with Dorie, an international cooking group working its way through Ms. Greenspan’s Around My French Table.
