Life of Wry

In my long tradition of trying new dishes on guests, I decided I would make a celery-apple-blue cheese salad, which seemed interesting and fresh. And let me back up here: this is for a gathering tomorrow, Saturday, with our hiking group, which doesn’t hike anymore and which has shrunk to, nominally, six, two of whom can’t make it tomorrow due to foot surgery, leaving us with just Susan, Ricker, Jim and me.

Anyway, I got a jump on the celery-etc salad today.

When I actually looked at the ingredients to make a shopping list and saw celeriac (celery root) I almost bailed, but then thought, w e l l … why not? …. not sure exactly what it is, not sure if the coop carries such a thing…. but decided to press on.

This is a celeriac:

Good lord, right? I mean, what the hell.

It’s not something you wash.. rather, you just start hacking away at all those roots..

…and eventually you get down to something that looks like this somewhat misshapen blob. Yum.

This was the point at which I summoned Jim. I needed help with that mandoline you see in the background. Mandoline’s are among the scariest of kitchen apparati* because of their very sharp blades and the closeness with which your fingers get to those blades.

The idea for the celeriac is to slice it up in paper-thin slices and serve it raw in the salad, along with apples (also thinly sliced), real celery (that you PEEL, yes), and other things.

Turns out, the mandoline didn’t produce slices thin enough so we abandoned that and went straight to the food processor, which worked beautifully.

Next up, apples..

It’s fun eating apples that are that thinly sliced.

Back to the peeled celery…

I’m not sure what the benefit of this is .. perhaps it just removes the tougher outer layer and renders a less fibrous stalk of celery. It’s nice, I guess, but not sure I’d go to the trouble next time.

I’m not even sure the celeriac adds much.. but maybe crunch. The base is celery, celeriac, tart apple, crumbled blue cheese, coarsely chopped roasted almonds, and parsley (from our garden!). The dressing has olive oil, shallots, mustard, lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar.

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Note: I thought I was grammatically clever in using apparati, but turns out:

The Latin plural of the noun apparatus is actually apparatus. (Sometimes the Latin is spelled singular apparātus and plural apparātūs; the vowel lengthens in the plural, but that’s not usually reflected in the spelling.) This is because it’s fourth declension. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when most educated English speakers had studied Latin, apparatus was sometimes used as the plural; I believe this usage is quite rare today.

Another note: We attended a Hanukkah party at Matt and Phyllis’ tonight. Jim and I aren’t Jewish (there were a few non-Jews), but it was nice to be in a gathering of Jewish people, lighting a Menorah, singing songs (sorta), trying to find some light in a lot of darkness right now. I was touched to be there. Here’s Matt offering the challah ..