chompsky

No recipes here, just two simple salads and a light soup for more summery fare.

One night, we had grilled Italian bread and a beautiful fresh caprese, made with basil, heirloom tomatoes, and velvety burrata mozzarella. I had no idea I was buying such fancy mozzarella at the time, though. I asked for one of the large balls of mozzarella, which I was excited to see at the cheese shop (La Grotta Del Formaggio) because it seems like here in Canada, all anyone sells is bocconcini. Seriously. A pizza with fresh mozzarella is said to have “bocconcini” on top. It’s weird.

Anyway, at the store, they give me the cheese and the woman at the cashier can’t find it in the system. She calls to the old Italian lady in the back, who informs her that That not mozzarella! That burrata! I immediately said, Wait, no, I wanted mozzarella! The cashier told me not to worry, it’s just a type of mozzarella. I was satisfied, paid what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of money for one ball of mozzarella, and went home. Where I cut open said cheese, and inside the familiar exterior was a core of something resembling cream cheese. I yelled OH GOD! to no one, and immediately Wikipedia’d burrata to make sure that this stuff was safe for human consumption. It turned out to be a beautiful cheese, and we enjoyed it immensely. Here’s to happy accidents.

(I hope I haven’t made my little sister barf all over her keyboard with all this cheese talk. Don’t worry, Lel, it’s not all we eat.)

The other salad was made with those cute little baby strawberries, some torn sorrel, field greens, more basil, and toasted pecans, topped with a nice balsamic. It was wonderful.

Finally, a simple miso soup. Red miso, wakame, tofu, garlic scapes (though I insist on calling them scamps), organic shiitakes, and snap peas mixed together quickly into something insanely delicious. We sprinkled some wild sea lettuce from the farmers’ market on our white rice from a Chinese restaurant–what, it was hard enough to work up the energy to turn on the stove for the soup!–and ate it all.