Lately, I have been in a funk. Now, more often than not, being in a mental funk bleeds over into my foodstuffs (a funk is by nature absurdly pervasive); by some cruel trick of the universe —or, perhaps, the simple logic that when something is as important to me as my daily meals a mental funk obviously affects those, too— in more depressed times, any claim I have of kitchen prowess evaporates along with my optimism. I turn out bad meal after bad meal, mediocre sandwiches and under-dressed asparagus. And the funk deepens. I go to the dark place of the peanut butter jar and I stay there. For a bit too long. 

So, I caved, and I bought tomatoes. Now, I went about it the right way— I sought out specimens that were deeply colored and just-soft and fragrant, and I don’t regret a second, a penny, a single hypothetical (nonexistent) twinge of guilt. They were worth it. It’s early summer, at this point, and I say I did not do myself a disservice here.

Two of the finest salads I have ever made came of it, after all. No exaggeration.

The platonic ideal of the recently mentioned Spring salad for my mom, dressed in a balanced red wine vinaigrette with dijon and Italian parsley, was a big bowl of really superb arugula, red & yellow tomato, radish, spicy, raw slivers of green garlic and some thyme. I had this with a medium-boiled egg, a hunk of baguette, and some goat cheese with a musky mountain air and the texture and richness of butter, and it was fucking amazing. More than perfect.

And then there was a delicate, yet assertive, concoction— wonderfully different, despite many of the same summery ingredients. Slices of tomato were appropriately salted, left to get all juicy, and then mixed with shaved red onion and herbs; the mess was sweetly piquant with red wine vinegar, earthy and herbal with thyme & chopped parsley. And then, chilled and ready, it was laid out atop a handful of bread—torn hunks of baguette coated in olive oil and made toasty-edged in the oven—that absorbed the lovely dressing and juice. Shavings of parmesan offered a nutty depth and small rounds of fresh mozzarella on the side a cool richness. Brilliant! Jeez.

I made a large batch of peanut butter cookies for my co-workers and roommates, and I washed my hands of the funk.