It’s October, and that means pumpkins. As a child, I hated, hated, cake for my birthday. So my mom made me pumpkin pie instead. Oh, the thrill of being the first pumpkin pie eater of the season, a full month before Thanksgiving trotted into town.
Let me tell you about a most surprising salad that I ate at my beloved Marlow & Sons, where I go to remind myself that there is nothing in the world more worth fighting for than food. This salad: the daily market salad, composed of vegetable scrapings, swirls of olive oil and good, strong parmagiano. Those vegetables: Here’s where things must take a bow. Thinly shaved raw pumpkin with a carved crunch in the mouth the equivalent of a spoon scraping pumpkin flesh for seeds. This mixed with pungent broccoli greens possessing an honorable, wholly charming overbite.
Imagine, if you will, a plate that resembled the topography of a New Mexican mesa in winter: Dry, earthen desert parsed with summer’s last green shrubbery. A fine layer of powder precipitates the dish with salty sweetness.
