I have wanted one of those rings where you make salad towers for so long and could not find any…after digging Sur La Table, I finally found one completely random since it was hiding in the spatula and spoon section. I was as excited as if I found some gold nugget! I love that store, I can spend hours just looking at every little item. They do have a lot of gadgets but in that respect I am a kitchen utensil geek. Not that I have a lot, because I don’t have any more room in my kitchen and when you have no more space available, the rule should be “you buy something new, you throw away something old” but I cannot throw anything away, I always feel I would need it at some point, I get so attached to my kitchen tools that the kitchen is filled with everything new, old, useless, and useful, and even broken.

A friend of mine came for dinner and she brought me a couple of beautiful pomegranates, she calls them jewels…and they do look like jewels, like little rubys. So I had to use them. Besides, we went out for dinner a couple of weeks ago in a nice Italian restaurant, and we got so disappointed by their crab salad (the crab was canned, and I hate canned crab), it was sitting on top of some sad romaines leaves and sprinkled with cheese! Cheese and crab don’t go with my tastes. Some Italian restaurants should stop trying to please Americans and offer them authentic cuisine instead. I am sure Americans would love it. I think they’re the most adaptable people when food is concerned because they’re so exposed to different cuisines. Honestly that so-called “crab salad” was basically a Cesar salad with canned crab (and believe me Cesar did not eat that salad).

Actually I noticed that many restaurants do use canned crab! what a shame! (and not cheep joints, nice restaurants that I will not bad mouth but it bugs me). I would charge a little more for the salad, but would use fresh crab! Some restaurants are cutting corners where they should absolutely not do it. So anyway, I promised my friend I would make her a nice crab salad with lots of fresh ingredients that would make her forget about the precarious one we had.

I love grapefruit so much with crab, smoked salmon and shrimps in salad, that this tower has somehow become my signature crab salad. It’s fruity, flavorful and so refreshing. You can also use shrimps and smoke salmon as I mentioned if you cannot find crab. It has a different twist but it’s as good. Also pomegranate vinegar is a must, it really enhances the salad beautifully.

Ingredients for 4

• 1.5 lb king crab legs
• 1 red grapefruit, quarters peeled
• 1 pomegranate
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1 bunch watercress
• 1 endive, chopped crosswise

For the vinaigrette

• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp pomegranate vinegar
• 1 tsp grapefruit juice
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbs chives, chopped
• cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients together and mix well.

First remove crab meat from its shells. Remove excess water and set aside.

Wash endive and watercress. Cut endives and remove stems from watercress, keeping the leaves.

Cut pomegranate lengthwise and remove seeds.

Using ring, place some crab at the bottom of the plate, add a layer of avocado, drizzle with vinaigrette. Add 2 quarters of grapefruit, some pomegranate seeds, endives and watercress and add a little vinaigrette. Press firmly so that tower will stand still. Start again with a second layer of the same ingredients.

Remove ring and decorate with some pomegranate seeds and vinaigrette around the tower.

When I go grocery shopping and I end up in the fish section, I cannot resist to buy seafood, especially when it’s fresh. I found those at the Berkeley bowl last week and they just made my day.

It reminds me of the open markets in France and Italy where you go early in the morning to avoid the late morning or noon heat, and you buy all fruits and vegetables, fish and seafood. Then you go home to prepare lunch with all the wonderful fresh products you bought. Sometimes, the neighbor drops by, to chit chat, or gossip about some other neighbor, have apéritif, and most of the time stays for lunch. Well, that’s how it works at my parents house. It makes me nostalgic, then I feel like going home.

I am not quite sure if this recipe is Italian with a French Flair or a French with an Italian flair, so let’s say it’s mediterranean, and that is certain, because it has many of those ingredients used in mediterranean cuisine.

I love wild fennel, my mom cooked with it very often, especially in her white meat dishes, so that might why I love it so much. Wild fennel is a kind of fennel that grows wild and that has a very long stem, sometimes can go over 5.5 feet in height. In California, it grows all over the place, and I just saw a huge stem peaking in the garden that was perfect for those calamari. Wild fennel is often used to flavor olives, fish and seafood.

When you buy calamari, they shrink a lot, so don’t be afraid to buy more than what you think you would need. For this dish which was for one person as a main course (or two as an appetizer), I used one pound. The other thing to keep in mind, is that if you have never cleaned squid or calamari, you might want to buy the ones that are already cleaned, since you have to remove the skin and eyes. Well that doesn’t sound too inviting but it’s not that complicated nor repulsive. 

Ingredients for 2

• 1 lb squid
• mizuna salad or frisee
• Juice of 1/2 pink grapefruit
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbs olive oil
• chili flakes
• 1 tbs wild fennel, chopped
• 1 tbs kalamata olives, cut in halves
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tsp raspberry vinegar

Preparation

Clean squid by removing skin, detaching tentacles, and emptying the inside of the squid. wash under running water and place in bowl of water.  Wash well, then pat dry and remove excess water.

Cut the grapefruit in half and collect the juice of that half. Peel the other half. Remove the skin of the half quarters and set aside. 

For the vinaigrette,  mix grapefruit juice, oil, vinegar, chili flakes, garlic, fennel, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Drizzle olive oil, 1/2 tsp of vinegar on top of squid. Add salt and pepper. Grill on a grill or under broiler for about 5 minutes, until lightly . Do not overcook or the calamari will be rubbery. They’re tender so they cook very fast.

Mix olive oil and lemon and add to the salad. Mix well. Place some salad on a serving plate, add calamari, and pour some of the vinaigrette on top of the calamari and decorate with a fennel leave.