columella salad

Not too long ago, Adam came home with an exciting piece of information - a friend of his had bought a cookbook filled with ancient Roman recipes. How fun! My interest in ancient Greece and Rome goes back many many years, and in fact the first half of my degree was in classical studies. I took three years of Latin and I still bristle when I hear it described as a dead language. Even though I can't read it anymore. Sad!

persian wrap with tomato, feta and fresh herbs

 

Sometimes I turn into a huge baby. I wish I could say this was a rare occurrence, but unfortunately it happens on a semi-regular basis. I can't tell you how lucky I am that Adam just laughs it off, tells me I'm being ridiculous, then proceeds to take care of me.

Last night was one such instance of babydom. After a long day of work, I was so hungry that my stomach was eating itself. Compounding this was the fact that it was hot and muggy outside, therefore it was disgusting in our apartment. We walked to a restaurant to get some dinner, only to find it closed. DISASTER! At this stage I had reached the point of no return - where nothing, absolutely nothing, would make me happy. I was cranky, hungry, hot and lacking fresh air. Adam came to the rescue as he always does, this time with the idea of recreating Byblos' delicious Persian wraps. Of course, I didn't come around to this idea until we got home from the store and I'd devoured about 100 local strawberries like a maniac. Unwashed. I'm so ashamed.

fruit salad with fresh mint

 

I used to make fruit salad by cutting up any fruit that I liked. You will get tasty fruit salads that way for sure - I don't think anyone's ever had a bad fruit salad except, perhaps, those fruit salads you get at cafeterias that taste like the plastic container they came in. You know the ones. They're generally made up of a few wedges of orange, some grapefruit and a couple of red grapes soaking in a rancid pool of ammonia. Delicious!

In order to take your fruit salad from tasty to exceptional, all you need to do is put a little thought into it. Don't go nuts adding whatever fruit you want. Think simple and understated. Restrain yourself and think about what flavours compliment each other. That's what I've started doing lately and the other day I came up with the idea for this (though Adam was good enough to prepare it while I was busy making something else for our esteemed guests of the day). It was the best fruit salad in the history of fruit salad. If I do say so myself.