Jim Gaffigan
One of the benefits of eating salad is that you can eat tons of it and never be satisfied.
I’m taking a detour this Labor Day to talk about salads, which have become a beloved part of my work from home routine this past year. I’m talking big, chopped salads with kale, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and hard boiled eggs, or shredded mesclun, leftover salmon, quinoa and baby tomatoes. Always doused in oil and vinegar, topped off with a spoonful of hummus and mixed vigorously in a deep bowl.
They are, in my opinion, absolute works of art:
Part of my inspiration for featuring them here comes from the The Department of Salad: Official Bulletin, a great newsletter with beautiful pictures that put mine to shame. Salads are, by their very nature, a colorful food, and the versions Emily Nunn and the rest of the DoS community make are more art than meal: salt-specked peaches scattered across a bed of wilted kale, sliced avocados with perfect pools of olive oil, fuzzy looking frisée. Even the ground pepper pops on the screen. It has thousands of paid subscribers, an impressive feat when you consider how reluctantly people eat salad in the first place.
More than DoS, it’s my own desperate craving for the stuff that makes me want to write about them. My salads are all consuming, from that first early-morning tickle to the full blown kick to the taste buds that have me opening the fridge and lining up my ingredients before 11 a.m. It’s gotten to the point where, in Hawaii on our honeymoon, it was my mixing bowl lunches I missed, not the comfort of my own bed or the familiarity of our Brooklyn neighborhood. And the first thing I did after landing back home? Went to the store and re-supplied.
I bring this up because 1) I’m hoping an empathetic reader will share a similarly bizarre work from home craving and 2) I think it says something about the power of routine and preparation in achieving “good results.”
Now, life can’t be all about achieving “good results.” I’m not even sure what that would look like. But some results are better than others, and what I do know is that salads like the ones I’ve described above are delicious, fast lunches that are impossible to do at the last minute. Have a hankering for roasted sweet potatoes? Your lunch will be ready in an hour. Want to throw in some hard-boiled eggs? Hope you like them uncomfortably warm and impossible to peel.
Because great things don’t happen all of a sudden. They take planning, like roasting my veggies, cooking my proteins, and peeling my carrots ahead of time. They take up-front investment, like spending an hour or two prepping on Sundays so I can spend five minutes prepping on the other days. And they take commitment, because if there’s one thing the salad category has shown me it’s that you are greatly rewarded for strong efforts and anything less, well, kind of tastes like sh*t. There’s a reason why salads have gotten such a bad rap.
And I’m convinced that is why I crave the salads so much every day. I make them, and that perfect bite of chopped egg, oil-soaked kale and roasted zucchini is only possible because of the work I’ve put in. It’s why a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tastes so damn good at the peak of a mountain. You’ve earned it.
The Department of Salad’s motto is “EAT MORE SALAD FOR A HAPPIER LIFE!”, and I fully agree with them there. The salad is far more than most assume, and a journey through the lettuce patch is full of discovery, with otherwise nasty-sounding combinations (cottage cheese in a salad!?) exposed for what they really are: delicious.
But some of you won’t like salads, no matter how nutrient-packed and filling they become, so for you I’ll make a slight twist on the original: “ENJOY THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR FOR A HAPPIER LIFE!” Because that’s what this whole salad thing is, at its most basic. An example of doing something well and reaping the benefits.
And lord knows I needed the improvement, if the below ketchup and cheese sandwich, from the early days of the pandemic, is any indication.
You get what you work for.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
The Secret to Happiness at Work – Arthur Brooks, The Atlantic
“To be happy at work, you don’t have to hold a fascinating job that represents the pinnacle of your educational achievement or the most prestigious use of your “potential,” and you don’t have to make a lot of money. What matters is not so much the “what” of a job, but more the “who” and the “why”: Job satisfaction comes from people, values, and a sense of accomplishment.”
Flight Attendants’ Hellish Summer: ‘I Don’t Even Feel Like a Human’ – New York Times
“Twenty years ago, ‘every single person who came on our plane was completely on our team,’ she said. But now, flight attendants have become ‘punching bags for the public.'”
What I’m Listening To:
Sir James Dyson, Founder of Dyson – The Tim Ferriss Show
“That’s something to never forget. You must never be satisfied. Always be dissatisfied, always be unhappy about your product. Keep on making it better and better.”
What I’m Watching:
9/11: One Day in America (Hulu)
More to come next week, but amazing 6-part documentary on 9/11. Difficult to watch.