• stunning salads and forever friends

    August 19, 2009

    On Sunday I went to my friend Sara Stoneham’s for lunch and couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful spread she had prepared for me, especially since she had insisted she was a terrible cook.  I met Sara when I moved to London in 2004 and showed up at the advertising agency she worked at looking for advice on how to break into the industry here.   I’ve always known Sara is a gifted copywriter, and now I also know she is a liar: she’s a stupendous hostess who served me one of the best salads I’ve ever had.  When I told her afterwards I wish I had taken a picture, she told me she already had.  Here it is, along with the email message that is so very her.  I only wish she had a website already so you could learn more about her.  Come on, Sara, let the world hear about you.  And thank you, dear friend, for always surprising me and teaching me.

    The recipe is stolen from Jamie Oliver and he got it from Das, who runs the The Rasa in Stoke Newington and who made it UK by the cress which is not an Indian thing. It is on p112 of Jamie’s Dinners.

    I like Jamie – he was cute when I was younger – and he swears almost as much as me.

    The Rasa is a great place for Kerelan food - I will take you to the restaurant one day – it is just round the corner from my house and is painted totally exotic pink which relieves the grey north London gloom.
    keralan-salad1
    Crunchy Kerelan Salad
    1 coconut
    2 red peppers
    4 punnets cress
    1 bunch spring onions
    2 ripe mangos

    dressing
    dressing thumb-size piece of ginger
    juice of 3/4 limes
    7/8 tablespoons good olive oil
    sea salt
    pepper

    Grate the coconut. Chop the rest.
    Shove on the dressing. Eat fresh.
    Goes nicely in flatbread.

    (Jamie describes how to do it a lot more.  But really how much does one need to be told about chopping salad?)
    I add some garlic.
    l love Kerelan salads as I did an Ayervedic course there and totally cleaned my system for the first time in my life. Even had hot oil up the bum!!!! Indians being obsessed with pooing and eating. When I was there I only ate stuff right for my ‘varta/kapha’ type – so I didn’t have this salad but I had many similar. You would totally love it there. All organic fresh salad type foods – and little ‘messes’ of fragrant thali curries – all veggie.  Some designed to purify and detox and purge your system and then later others to nourish and rebalance the varta /kapha/pitta in your body.

    All that bored me a bit – but I loved the yoga and 2 massages a day…maybe you could blag a way to go by writing some articles…
    I reckon that you are vata/pitta (air fire) constitution but I could easily be wrong…
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