celery root salad

I’m completely smitten with old cookbooks and reenactment cookbooks…well, historical cookbooks, because they’re often not reenactments so much as modern interpretations on historical recipes. I only wish they were reenactment ones; maybe just explained a little more thoroughly than old ones. I have this one interpreted historical cookbook from the City Tavern, which almost makes me cry because I want all of the recipes so badly to be exactly what olde timey Philadelphians would have eaten at that restaurant so that I can taste something exactly the same. But there are some recipes in the book that aren’t too modernized. It’s refreshing at least to see lard used as the fat of choice in some recipes. This celery root salad is one simple little dish that I’ve been eyeing for a while from that book. There are a fair amount of vegetable recipes in it that are prepared nice and heavily. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good, crisp summer salad, but I’m not going to say I don’t really love fat-laden vegetables. I should have been born in Minnesota, I guess.
Celeriac is one of my absolute favorite roots. To eat. Some how or other, though, I’ve avoided it raw. Mashed, boiled, roasted, but not raw. Come to think of it, I’ve also never had raw beets I don’t think. I asked for a mandoline for Christmas and this was the first time I used it to julienne something. Pretty sweet. I’m sorry if you don’t have one and you have to julienne the root by hand. No, I’m not, because I’ve had to julienne everything by hand before this. You can do it. You’ll be a better person for it. You could also use a box grater, though the result won’t be as elegant, but whatever. I’m not really elegant, either.

celery root and onion rösti

I’m having a real crabby week. And it might have started Saturday. A high school kind of moody, little things are getting me down kind of week. I had a meltdown at the gym. That was real cool. I am sick of my bum wrist… both bum wrists and I don’t want to have to think about them anymore and I’m tired of getting setback in trying to get betterstrongerfaster. I’m going to be the worst old person, when all sorts of things start to ache and give me problems. Saturday I got mad when I tried to make this recipe. I burnt it. And I got mad at our stupid stove whose biggest burner isn’t big enough for my cast iron pan so the rimmed edge hangs off and doesn’t allow the pan to heat evenly. The edges of the rösti were only lightly browned, and the center was black, but I still ate most all of it. It’s pretty great, so I remade it on Sunday for some friends I had over. I don’t think they thought I was too weird for taking pictures, and they gave it their thumbs up.

turnip and pork hash

I’m torn about saying this, but it’s not root vegetable season anymore. Winter squashes are long done. In another month or so it’ll be time to start thinking about spring-y stuff. I’m torn because I know that once I admit that heavy vegetables are all coming from like Mexico and that I need to stop making them, I’ll inevitably want to move on to spring before realizing that ugh, it’s March, and the weather isn’t anywhere near warm. So here is an unabashed embrace of all things root. Specifically turnips. It’s not the most attractive dish. It kind of looks like barf when you’re done. Shut up and put a fried egg on top and you’ll be fine.
There was a time a few months back when I was obsessed with hashes. I basically ate some for every meal for like three weeks straight. They make you stink like onions and grease. Small price to pay for eating crispy, sweet browned onions and potatoes, other ingredients optional. I’d be sufficiently happy to eat that with eggs for the rest of my life I think. But, I guess that’d be pretty lame and I like to think I’m pretty unlame and food cool. Seriously food cool. You know I’m really into avocado foam-frosted localorganicwhenpossible ground beef cupcakes. That’s my next blog post.