Celery & Fennel Salad, Cantaloupe & Arugula Salad, and a Baked Potato Bar by Alison Roman

“IT’S THE FI-NAL SAL-LAAAAADS!” (And some baked potatoes!) 

The ones I waited longest to enjoy. Eating these two salads revealed two new discoveries: 1) Hard blue cheese actually isn’t so bad. 2) Black olives are the most inferior kind of olive. Those two ingredients are the sole reasons I waited so long to make these salads. They also confirmed one fact that I already knew by heart: 1) olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper are all you need to dress a fantastic salad. 

I just spent the last few days celebrating a dear college friend who’s getting married soon. A small group of us drove or flew to Sawyer, Michigan where several inches of snow and a cozy cabin by Lake Michigan awaited. Weekends like these remind me just how blessed by community I am. I’ve been gifted friendships with some of the most authentic, kind, goofy, thoughtful women. Perhaps what’s most impressive about them is that they are the same kind of people in friendship as they are in the world every day, towards friends and strangers alike. We don’t see one another more than maybe once a year, which makes our time together all the richer. 

Those who flew, came in through Chicago airports, so they needed a ride to the cabin and back. We had some time to spend before their flights home, so I decided to involve them in making three of my final six recipes for a fancier-than-usual lunch. 

We gathered around my kitchen island and assumed our positions…

Megan: She owns Dining In, and thus has cooked a good number of Alison’s recipes herself. So she took charge of making Alison’s Skillet Chicken with Crushed Olives and Sumac. We’ve both made this several times in the last year because it’s that good. (It’s also the recipe used for the cover of the book). 

Molly: Standing at the corner of the counter, she expertly sliced and seeded a cantaloupe into half-inch thick rounds, then removed the outer skin. Alison says nothing about removing the rind, but we figured it’d be easier to eat that way (duh). Molly also took charge of thinly slicing the celery stalks — like a boss. 

Anne: Standing in the middle, Anne eagerly volunteered to stab the russet potatoes all over with a fork to prep them for the oven. Post-oil, she sprinkled them with salt and pepper. She helped Molly remove the cantaloupe rinds. She coarsely chopped the walnuts and pistachios. She tossed the cantaloupe and arugula together and squeezed a whole lemon all over it. She topped the bowl with the chopped black olives and a handful of chopped chives. 

Caroline: God bless her. At the far end of the counter, she oiled the potatoes by hand. After, she expertly sliced a fennel bulb into thin strips and a shallot into thin rings. She tossed the celery, fennel, lemon juice, shallot, toasted nuts, salt, pepper, and olive oil together. She crumbled the hard blue cheese on top and sprinkled the bowl with celery leaves. Anne and Molly helped with the celery leaves too. She finely chopped the black olives (I used a tiny can of pitted ones from Whole Foods.) 

Yours truly: I played quarterback -- giving each teammate instructions at regular intervals. My few tasks included toasting the nuts in a skillet (I didn’t have enough walnuts to fill half a cup so I added pistachio meats into the mix— a great call), testing each dish and adding salt and pepper to taste, and setting out the baked potato toppings - sour cream, Greek yogurt, butter, flaky salt, pepper, and chopped chives. 

This meal obviously consisted of dishes chosen by necessity. I didn’t consider a cantaloupe and black olive salad to be the first choice pairing for a baked potato bar. But much to my surprise, all four dishes felt surprisingly cohesive as a meal, with the celery and fennel salad as the strongest outlier.

Someone recently asked me what my favorite part has been about this project. My answer? The people I enjoyed the meals with. Every dish created an opportunity to invite people into my home, or bring the food to them, and commune together. Share an experience, talk about what we’re eating, the flavors we’re tasting. A chance to encourage and nourish the people I love. Yes, that is what brings me the most joy. 

221, 222, and 223 recipes cooked, 2 to go.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hot Honey Butter and Beets with Buttermilk and Walnuts

“A Working Woman Makes Sides”

This is the story of a working woman who also has a slowly budding social life in a new city. Said woman has been invited with her husband to dinner at a friend's house. She was asked to bring one side dish, so naturally she opted to bring two of them. She chose Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hot Honey Butter and Beets with Buttermilk and Walnuts by Alison Roman. 

Of course, this presents complications. With the dinner on a Friday in the city and her work out in the suburbs, she knew she’d have but 20 minutes to assemble the sides when she got home before travelling to dinner. The commute would take its toll once again. So she had to get creative. 

She chose to roast her beets in vinegar the night before. She let the little guys ooze their juices and soften while spending an hour in the oven. This, she thought, would put her in a good position for the next evening. 

The next evening arrived in the blink of an eye. Earlier that day, she asked her husband to put the sweet potatoes in the oven so they would be piping hot when she got home. He did this, kind man, but just as the working woman suspected, the oven turned into a big hot mess. This is no fault of the husband. He followed instructions to a tee. The issue stems from the woman not trusting her instincts. You see, the woman read a recipe that told her to put the sweet potatoes, poked by a fork all over, directly on the oven rack to roast. But in her heart she knew that the sugars from the potatoes would ooze out and burn, sticking to the oven with gusto. And she was right, and the oven became one hot mess, and it created many smoky problems for her the next day… but that’s another story for another time. 

The clock was now ticking to get things ready and whisked off to her friend's house. In a matter of minutes, she frantically completed the following tasks (though she’d like you to think she did this calmly and coolly with an heir of sophistication): 

• Toast walnuts on a baking sheet for ten minutes 

• Peel and slice the beets

• Measure buttermilk, yogurt and lemon juice in a bowl, stir and add salt and pepper

• Thinly slice a red onion and lightly pickle the slices in lemon juice and sumac 

• Melt butter and spices, adding vinegar and honey too

• Scrape out the meats of very hot sweet potatoes into a bowl, practically burning her fingertips in the process

• Place the beets in the bowl with buttermilk and sprinkle the onions over them

• Chop the toasted walnuts and sprinkle them over the beets too 

• Drizzle the butter mixture over the sweet potatoes and give them a good stir

• Add cumin seeds to the top of the bowl of beets and cover with saran wrap

• Cover the bowl of potatoes with foil and pack a half a lemon in a bag, along with flaky salt

• Decide she’ll worry about cleaning the oven later 

• Tell husband it’s time to go 

All these things she did in mere minutes. She feels some loss at the fact that these tasks bring her real joy and life, but she couldn’t find that joy because of the need to rush. She needed to rush because she works far away. And she wonders how to balance that work and that joy. Can the two meet, coexist? All this, she knew, would be figured out over time. For now, she chose to focus on the six friends in front of her and enjoy those slightly spicy, salty, sweet potatoes. She savored the night she had left. 

168 and 169 recipes cooked, 56 to go.

Grilled Eggplant Dressed with Garlicky Walnuts and Lots of Basil by Alison Roman

Eggplant, I’ve learned, is polarizing. Its flavor, its texture, and even its shape seem to draw out strong responses from people. Whether you love it or hate it, you feel strongly about the camp you’re in. Which is funny to me, because personally I’m in the middle. I didn’t grow up with eggplant – I’m not even sure if I’d heard of it till college. But my school’s cafeteria didn’t do the vegetables any justice. It wasn’t until making my own ratatouille that I was presented with eggplant in an edible, non-soggy and flavorless form. That experience turned me on to eggplant. I realized its potential for providing an almost creamy element to recipes, when cooked correctly. Alison sure loves a creamy eggplant, and has since exposed me to several other ways to eat it, particularly the oil-roasted method. Which I think I prefer to grilled eggplant. 

Grilled eggplant, though it looked pretty, didn’t prove to be the best eating experience. I found that the skin became tougher and hard to chew. I found myself scraping the flesh out with my fork, which was far less appetizing. 

The flavor of this recipe… well, there wasn’t a whole lot of it. In my opinion, Alison’s signature move is in-your-face flavor. But this recipe lacked boldness. The toasted walnuts with garlic and pepper flakes were nice but not strong. The basil added some obviously herbal notes, but it didn’t transform anything. Salt and pepper didn’t carry enough weight to make this stand out. And in fact, only two of the four of us ended up eating any of it. I brought my leftovers home, and a week later, they’re still sitting in my fridge, untouched. 

All that to say, I’m still squarely in the middle when it comes to eggplant. I really like the oven-roasted kind, but I’m out for soggy or grilled eggplant. I don’t care how tiny and cute the eggplant might be, the recipe needs to have decisive flavor. Do you have eggplant standards, too? I’d love to know! 

119 recipes cooked, 106 to go.

Clam Pasta with Chorizo and Walnuts by Alison Roman

And Alison does it again – completely exceeds my seafood expectations and makes me want to cook whatever crustacean she uses, again and again. I’ve never once thought clams were appetizing. I’ve never once craved them. Even after living in San Francisco for two years – home of the clam chowder & sourdough bread bowl – I avoided clams with gusto. 

With the same trepidation, I approached the seafood counter at Cub to order two pounds of littleneck clams. I watched the soft-spoken man behind the counter take his time adding clams to the scale, wishing I wasn’t spending $18 on the little guys. But alas, all for the project! 

First step was to toast the walnuts, whole, in the oven at 350. I find that it takes about 13 minutes to get a sufficient toasting, as opposed to the 8-10 minutes Alison suggests. Or it could just be my oven. Alison frequently asks for toasted nuts, and I capitalize on this by toasting more than called for so I can eat the rest as a snack! Once the nuts cooled, I could chop them into tiny nibs to make the gremolata. For those curious, Google says that gremolata is “a dressing or garnish made with chopped parsley, garlic, and grated lemon zest, served as an accompaniment to meat or fish.” And that’s exactly what I mixed with the walnuts: parsley, garlic, and lemon zest. 

Thirty minutes before dinnertime, I started cooking the chorizo, a task I always find annoying because it takes far too much effort to break up the meat in the skillet. Remind me next time to crumble it by hand before putting it in the pan. Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta (corn & brown rice pasta) in a pot of unsalted water. Once the chorizo was just browned through, I added another 4 cloves of minced garlic and let them get nicely aromatic. 

Quickly after, the clams were ready to join the fun. I placed the lid on the pan and shook it every 20 seconds for 3 minutes. That’s all it took for the clams to open and warm through. So easy! I added the cooked pasta straight from the pot with tongs, just as Alison suggested, along with over a cup of the pasta water. For the next 5 minutes, Madeline took over and vigorously shook the skillet as the starch in the pasta water formed a sauce that coated the noodles with briny, salty flavor. Many twists of black pepper later, and this was ready to serve. 

And wow, was it delicious. If you’re like me and you find clams intimidating, this is a great introductory recipe that will leave you unafraid and ready for more. It’s not at all fishy tasting, and the pasta and chorizo make it feel like a familiar dinner with a fun twist. The walnuts and parsley added a really nice textural variance, and added yet another flavor element to make things interesting. There were absolutely no leftovers. 

I got my courage to make this dish from 3 daring friends who wanted to try it with me. Sam, Madeline, and Jordan. And as is customary with this crew, this became another All-Out Alison Meal. I’ll deploy the other recipe essays through the rest of this week. 

103 recipes cooked, 122 to go.

Garlicky Beet Dip with Walnuts by Alison Roman

Hot take: You have to really love beets, deep in your heart and without reservation, to also love, or even kind of like, this dip. The beet’s presence is as strong and consistent as your heart’s beat. It’s the first thing you taste, and the very last thing your mouth remembers. Yes, garlic and toasted walnuts and labne (or in my case, goat’s milk yogurt) have things to say. Their distinct flavors all have brief moments in the spotlight. But this is really a beet-centric dip, 2 cups of it to be exact. 

I made this dip, planning to take it to a friend’s home as an appetizer option. However, that friend wasn’t feeling well and cancelled an hour before we were to arrive for dinner. I was suddenly stuck with a giant bowl of this beet dip and a husband who, for lack of a better term, hates beets. He took one inquisitive bite and said, “that’s terrible.” Now to be fair, if you like beets, this dip isn’t terrible. I, for one, really enjoy roasted beets. But I have to concede that even I couldn’t have too much of this without feeling overwhelmed (beetwhelmed?). A full bite of pureed beets, even when interrupted by a cracker, is a lot to handle. 

We ended up rescheduling the dinner with friends a few nights later. The beet dip still sat largely untouched in my fridge. But sadly, I just couldn’t get myself to bring it with me. There the dip sat for about 5 days. Every time I opened the fridge door, I tried to avert my gaze as conflicting feelings of duty and aversion rose to the surface. I didn’t want to violate my standards for not wasting food. But I couldn’t get myself to eat it either. I don’t at all like to admit this, but I did end up tossing most of it in the trash. This is probably my least favorite dish so far. 

But again, if you’re an ardent beet lover, then you should give this a try. 

77 recipes cooked, 148 to go.