morsels & sauces

Okay, people.  This salad hardly needs a recipe. The title of the salad pretty much says it all. But I am still handing this one over to you because of what  Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (chefs and cookbook writers extraordinaire) do to the goat cheese. They mix it with heavy cream.   Yes,  more  dairy. And in doing so, they get to create these little clouds of cheesiness goodness that when added to the sweet figs, the acidic lemon, the crisp lettuce, the crunchy pistachios, and the thick honey--well, this salad becomes much, much more than the sum of its parts.  My mouth is watering now as I type this. Perfect for a crisp autumn day, this salad makes a satisfying lunch or a sweet starter to a great meal. These figs are part of the plethora of fruit that one of the parents at my school has been bringing to the faculty lounge. From pears to plums, from apples to figs, we are luxuriating in the plenty of the orchards...

We are in May: the month of exhaustion for teachers and students alike. And in the midst of said exhaustion, a simple, beautiful, and flavorful salad seems just the ticket. Because I don't have energy for much else. Seriously. Do not expect a lot from an educator in May. I snapped up this bright and peppy cookbook a few months ago at my local used bookstore. Marked down to a mere fraction of the cost of a new cookbook (and without a spot, scratch, or dallop of sauce on it!), this book basically begged to be mine. What, with it's beautiful photographs, Middle Eastern recipes, and association with Ottolenghi, how could I deny it? Honey & Co. is the brain- and love-child of Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, acclaimed chefs who opened a small restaurant in London in 2012 after having done their time with the famed Yotam Ottolenghi  (among others in their storied culinary upbringing). Srulovich writes that they wanted their restaurant to be "a noisy, cr...