Two years ago, I promised my mother, when I was planning my wedding in August, that “Paris just doesn’t get that hot.” I was right that year, and the version of me wearing a floor-length, sleeved, lace dress is very grateful.
The version of me using an ice pack as a pillow while watching television in the evenings does not.
It is hot in Paris. It is excruciatingly hot. It’s so hot that it’s all that anyone here can talk about, which is infuriating in its own way, but I’m too hot to think about not talking about how hot it is, or to think about writing about anything other than how hot it is.
It means that dinner in the past few days has been salad, more often than not. But for me, salad means something other than salade, which is the French word for lettuce. In fact, very few of my salads actually have any lettuce in them at all.
The motivation for this is two-fold. Firstly, lettuce goes bad quickly, which means that when I change my mind about what’s for dinner, I don’t have to worry about it fading fast and ending up in the bin. But secondly, I like lettuces that have a lot of texture to them, which generally don’t have tons of nutrients. I like crunch. I like flavor. So most of the time, I make my meal salads with a hodgepodge of chopped veggies, making them rich in nutrients, texture, color, and flavor.
Summer Chopped Vegetable Salad (serves 2)
1 can artichoke hearts, halved or quartered
1/2 cucumber, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 small can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 avocado, diced
100 grams pickled anchovies (these were pickled with chile, but plain works well too!)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
Toss everything together in a large bowl. Consume.