Lessons in Herbs, From My Salad Days

I love going to the grocery store almost as much as my mom hates taking me there. She says I’m a spendthrift. I prefer the term epicurean. To her point: if given a choice, I will always pick the more expensive cheese. I tell her I’m a gay man; decadence is my birthright. I believe the key to happiness is living beyond your means. In the grocery store, I put this philosophy into practice: if it looks good, throw it in the cart.

Inevitably, my mom furrows her brow. “Are you really going to eat all that,” she asks, “or am I just going to end up throwing it out?”

She has a point. Something about groceries that I still find it hard to wrap my head around is that most of them expire. The lettuce wilts, mold spreads across the strawberries, the Icelandic yogurt turns chunky. Even the root vegetables, if given enough time, will conspire against you. Each time, I’m astonished. How could this have possibly happened?

In college, I wised up a little. During senior year, I was elected to be the grocery shopper for my cooperative house. The losing candidates all ran on campaigns about budgeting and frugality. I just talked about how much I loved food. For some reason, people found this convincing. My childhood dream came true: I would get to go to the grocery store not once but twice a week.

But with my housemates’ money in my hands, I had to learn how to spend — and I’m sorry to use such an ugly word — responsibly. No, I thought, no one needs vanilla-flavored oat milk, as I set it back on the shelf. Like all politicians, I did not make good on my campaign promises: I started budgeting and worshiping at the altar of frugality.

I took an inventory of what my roommates ate and what ended up in the compost bucket, and I adjusted my shopping accordingly. I bought no more and no less than what was needed. At the grocery store, I learned in one month what my Catholic school education had failed to teach me over 10 years: prudence.

That is, except when it came to one corner of the grocery store. If the snake found Eve in the Garden of Eden, then he found me in the herb section. “I’m sorry,” I would say to my roommates when I returned from the store with heaps of cilantro and mountains of dill, “I just couldn’t help myself.”

I feel about herbs the same way Mormon men in the 19th century felt about wives: the more the merrier. I’ll have that one, and that one, and that one.

Herbs are wonderful. They are bursts of flavor, packing so much into so little. They’re peppery, lemony, earthy. They also turn bad quickly. And they can be hard to make adequate use of. People pick off a parsley leaf or two, sprinkle it on their pasta, and then discard the wonderful yet ever-overlooked stem.

Which is where the first of these kale salads comes in. Seeing one evening that my roommates had barely touched the herbaceous bounty I had provided for them, and knowing that said bounty would soon rot, I grabbed the herbs — cilantro, dill, parsley, and mint — by the fistful, coarsely chopped them, stems and all, and mixed them into a bowl with kale. The herb-to-kale ratio was just about 50-50. I dressed the salad with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil. The result was one of the simplest delights I’ve ever had.

The other salad here is not quite as simple though it’s just as delicious and was also born of necessity. When I was living at home during the high times of the pandemic, every time my mom took one of those precarious trips to the grocery store, I would ruin her day by asking if I could join. “I really need to get out of the house,” I would plead. The grocery store’s abundance — so many fruits, so many cereal boxes — took on a sublime quality. I bought prosciutto, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, ears of corn, pearl couscous, and bunches of kale.

Determined to prove my family wrong — I really am going to eat all of that — I combined all of these necessities into a warm salad that ended up becoming my meal of the summer, a sundry palliative to the sameness of the days.

I’d eat it alone, in a mixing bowl, on my front porch, with a glass of white wine, and the fat kind of novels I no longer have time for now that the world is up and running again. I still make it at this time of year when kale is growing like crazy, and I’m reminded that decadence is best when you slow down and really, really notice it.

SIMPLE KALE SALAD WITH HERBS
Makes 6 servings

2 bunches kale, washed and coarsely chopped
6 to 8 cups of fresh herbs, washed and coarsely chopped (leaves and stems) such as cilantro, dill, parsley, chives, and mint (mix as many herbs as possible so that each bite is something different)
Juice of ½ lemon
Drizzle of good-quality olive oil
Flaky sea salt
Fresh black pepper

1. In a large bowl, drizzle a little olive oil and sprinkle some flaky sea salt on your kale. Massage the kale until it’s just starting to wilt and feels luxurious in your hands.
2. Mix in the herbs. You want kale and herbs in equal parts.
3. Squeeze lemon over the salad and toss to make sure everything is perfectly coated. Sprinkle with more flaky sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.
4. Taste a leaf. Adjust as needed. I like mine to be super lemony and end up squeezing the other half of the lemon, but that might not be your vibe.

KALE SALAD TO THE NINES
Makes 6 servings

12 oz. prosciutto
1 cup pearl couscous
3 ears of corn, shucked
2 bunches kale, washed and coarsely chopped
10 oz. cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
½ lemon
8 oz. goat cheese
Drizzle of good-quality olive oil
Flaky sea salt
Fresh black pepper

1. Set oven to 400° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, place prosciutto on it, and bake for 10-15 minutes, until the ham is fiery red, blackened around the edges, crisped, and your kitchen smells like carnivore heaven.
2. Cook the couscous according to package instructions. Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Cook corn for 5 minutes. Let cool. Cut corn off the cob.
3. In a large bowl, drizzle a little olive oil and sprinkle some flaky sea salt on your kale. Massage the kale until it’s just starting to wilt and feels luxurious in your hands.
4. Add couscous, corn, and tomatoes to the bowl of kale. Squeeze lemon over the salad and toss to make sure everything is perfectly coated. Sprinkle with more flaky sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.
5. Taste a leaf. Adjust as needed. Once the salad is dressed to your liking, crumble the goat cheese and crisped prosciutto over it all.