Chris Martell

Burrata Pasta Salad: Make it Yours This Summer

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I would have bet my best bottle of red against finding out that there are well over 10 million recipes for burrata salad on google. Ok; I didn’t count them but AI said it did. Do we trust it? Well, maybe for this. Counting is one thing AI does well, I’m thinking. But, actually when you check into it, AI does not, in fact, count well. For grins, let’s just give her a million less or a million more and I’d still be sitting with my eyes stretched wiiiiidely open and my jaw skewed over to the left indicating my surprise. I can’t in my strangest, most massive dreams imagine 10 million of anything. Would I even want 10 million of anything? Yes; you’re right. I’d go for $10 million and so would you. 10 million recipes for a burrata salad? I’ll let you peruse the internet and choose one sometime (many, but not all, are a sort of caprese salad) but, for now, let’s go with mine. Because we can. And because I’ve no doubt you’ll soon make it yours. And anyway, mine is a Burrata Pasta Salad, not just a B-flat burrata salad, right? However you do yours, it will be charming, captivating, and delicious. It will be the sum of summer! Promise. And, here’s the best thing: This is mostly a no-cook meal. What’s better come summer?

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Chicken-Vegetable Wild Rice Soup

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You don’t have to be ill to make chicken soup, but if by chance you are, this week’s Chicken-Vegetable Wild Rice Soup would certainly encourage healing or at least comfort until you were well once more. I’m grateful to be healthy currently (THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! Hope you are, too.) and have not been in dire need of chicken soup for medicinal purposes. I was, however, looking for a veggie-heavy broth featuring whole grains or beans and lean poultry or fish to fortify us for playing pinochle. A pinochle lunch, so to speak. So what’s a pinochle lunch? It’s a simple, healthful meal we prepare to eat together before we play cards most of the afternoon. I mean, we need stamina, energy, and awareness — not stupor from food that sits like a box of rocks in our bellies. The four of us, and we meet once or twice per month, must have our wits about us as we are pinochle newbies and hence have trouble remembering things like a 10 is higher than a king. How could that be?? Who made these rules?? There is also usually a little wine at this meal, you see. Great for digestion and singing a little ditty or two but questionable in its help for our memories, which are sorely needed for pinochle.

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