Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Mango

Most people, when they decide to make salad, just make a salad.  A quick opening of the refrigerator door.  A glance at the counter.  A whisk and a shake of vinegar and oil.  I love almost every salad I make (surely I should be thinner) and Dave does, too.  With a couple of exceptions, I rarely repeat one, though I am crazy about fresh spinach with lime vinaigrette.  And, maybe even more, green beans and mushrooms with tarragon.  Or Caprese with bacon....  Well.

Baby Kale and Chicken Salad--10 Minutes to Dinner

 It is snowing, sleeting, and blowing in Saint Paul.  Again.  I mostly don't mind it.  As long as I don't have to drive.

When I came home from the market today, it was pouring tiny bits of frozen rain--treacherous.  I got the groceries up the slippery steps and emailed my boss I was opting out of a dinner meeting.   She agreed and canceled it.  Phew.  By then the biggest snowflakes I'd ever seen were flying like big crystal kites colliding over and over in a  shivering maelstrom.  My little warm kitchen never looked so good.

My welcoming committee.

Turkey Wild Rice-Vegetable Soup with Sherry and Walnut Garnish OR One More Snow Day in Saint Paul

It's spring in name only in Saint Paul.  Whereas many food writers and bloggers are already complaining about too many fresh pea or asparagus recipes, people here are still sniffling and shuffling around town in their by now worn-out snow boots. (Uh, there are not even pea tendrils in St. Paul because snow covers the vegetable gardens; see below.)  In fact, if you move here, you'll save a lot of money on shoes;  you only need them May - September.  Not only that,  you can write about fresh peas, rhubarb, and asparagus when folks further south are eating their first tiny tomatoes and are getting tired of grilling already.

This picture is out my front door this morning.

Ina Fridays -- Appetizers -- Guacamole

Thus begins a fun group blogging effort devoted to the recipes of Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, Food Network star, best-selling cookbook author, loving wife of Jeffrey, and all around bon vivant!   While Ina probably needs little introduction in the United States, here is a brief biography just in case.
 

 Ina's newest book.