Arugula: a love affair

On a dark rainy Seattle night, my family was on the prowl for a restaurant we had looked up earlier. Our GPS was uncooperative and sent us to a neighbourhood high up on a hill. Though the homes were gorgeous there, none were restaurants. We were hungry and finally gave up and settled on a restaurant that looked good from the outside.

I don't remember the name of the restaurant, or where it was. The menu had few items, all of them pricey. I went with the salmon that was topped with an arugula salad. An there I fell in love. . . with arugula. It's fresh yet earthy spiciness drew me in, and so ended my days of eating boring romaine and bitter radicchio. I vowed to buy it by the truckload during our next trip to the grocery store.

Sadly I polished off my latest box last night. It was paired with delicious cannelloni compliments of nonna which I realised I had yet to photograph. To my delight, I even grabbed one of the side-of-pan burnt edge pieces. Like burnt corner lasagna and corner slices of cake, it's always the best.

Once again, I was so distracted by the arugula I finished off 3/4 of the bowl before I remembered the cheesy delicious pasta right beside it. It seems almost silly to post up a recipe for a salad since there's really no wrong way to make one but here's the recipe for the arugula salad I made last night. You'll have to ask nonna about the cannelloni.

Arugula salad
Yield: 1 salad

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• plenty of pepper
• 3 cups arugula
• 1/2 tomato
• small handful craisins

1. Whisk the first 4 ingredients together until well blended
2. Toss with remaining ingredients
3. Serve immediately