Fast Food

Colorful berries and fruits have begun pushing cold weather greens to the side at farmer's markets now, so this is a reminder of what wonderful--and of course nutritious and environmentally healthy--fast food they can be.

Strawberries and raspberries are a human's dream come true: just nab and nosh. You don't have to do anything but enjoy their sweetness.  Remember to pick the red berries because strawberries will not continue to ripen once they are picked and don't wash any berry until the moment you're ready to eat it. Water rots berries.

A splendidly vibrant and nutritious lunch can be pulled together in no time out all from vegetables now piling up in the bins and baskets. Consider a table/plate of colorful salads: carrot and parsley, beet and dill, fennel and olive, cabbage and chicken, yogurt and cucumber-- with crusty bread and a platter of local cheeses, finished with a bowl of berries. Simple, sophisticated, slimming.

The cabbage and chicken salad recipe, from Vietnam, is in How to Fix a Leek...at the end of June so no need to repeat it here. To make carrot salad, just grate a few carrots into a bowl, chop an almost equal amount of parsley and add that, season with salt and pepper, dress with fresh lemon juice and olive oil.

You do have to boil or bake beets to get a salad or pickle but that's not too difficult. Cool and peel them. Slice each into thin disks and put in a wide, shallow bowl. Slice a purple onion or Vidalia sweet onion into very thin disks, break these into rings and add to the beets. Season with salt and pepper and a pinch of allspice.  Make a dressing that is 3 parts cider vinegar to 1 part olive oil and moisten the beets. Then chop fresh dill all over them.

For a fennel salad, cut off the stems off a large bulb, but keep a few of the frilly fronds for garnish. Core the fennel, wash, dry and chop it into bite sized pieces.  Combine in a serving bowl with 8-10 pitted black Kalamata olives and 1/2 cup roasted walnut pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Dress lightly with pure olive oil blended with 1 tbsp orange juice. Chop some of those frilly fronds and sprinkle on top.

The yogurt/cucumber salad known in Greece/Turkey as tsatsiki and in India/Nepal as raita is also in How to Fix a Leek... It take about two minutes and lasts (stored in the refrigerator) for days.  This is typically used in hot climates to cool the body so it's a perfect summer side dish.

And finally, tomatoes are almost here. So don't forget that summer special, real Greek salad. The authentic farmer's salad--and it's called farmer's salad in Greece is simply sliced cucumber disks, chunks of fresh tomato, strips of green pepper, black olives, crumbles or chunks of fresh feta cheese--available at farmers' markets--olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  Nothing else.  Nothing expresses the yumminess of summer better than that. And it's so easy if you shop right.