Niçoise, Nostalgia, and No Reservations

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Hello, friends.

In this week’s issue, we’ve got vegetables, served with vegetables, and topped with even more vegetables. Plus a few bits of fish thrown in for good measure.

Now, we all know how Anthony felt about vegetarians (hint: not a fan), but vegetables themselves? He had a thing for them. Not like the thing he had for crispy pig skin or roasted marrow bones—but a respectable fondness nonetheless.

For this week’s recipe, I turned to bibliomancy—the practice of opening a book (generally a sacred text) to a random page and taking it as a kind of divine guidance. And if Les Halles isn’t a sacred text, I don’t know what is.

So, without further ado, I present this week’s recipe: Salade Niçoise.

It’s been hot as hell lately, so this choice felt divinely inspired. Maybe even paranormally influenced. Honestly, maybe I should just let the ghost pick the recipes from now on.

The ghost seems to know that my favorite part of planning a meal is the treasure hunt—the chase for that one elusive ingredient. This week, it was white anchovies.

Now, I do have a jar of anchovies in the pantry, a tube of anchovy paste in the fridge, and maybe even a tin tucked in with the sardines in Louisiana hot sauce. But white anchovies? Nope. Anthony wanted the fancy kind. The expensive, but worth it kind.

Thank the kitchen gods—and Al Gore—for the internet. My usual gourmet haunt struck out, but one store across town had them. Thirty minutes later, I had the goods… and an unexpected find I’ll tell you about in a bit.

If you’ve never had Salade Niçoise, let me take you back to my first: a French bistro in Park City, Utah, sometime in the '90s. I don’t remember the name—something about a pig? Or a rabbit? What I do remember is feeling very sophisticated. It may have been the first French dish I ever tasted. And I loved it. The fact that I still remember the food and the ambiance after all these years tells me this was a pivotal event in my food life.

I served this version as a late lunch—right when the patio chairs were butt-searingly hot. So we dined indoors.

Prep was a breeze. Gently washed and hand-torn butter lettuce (I like the kind with the little root ball still attached—it feels like gardening). Red potatoes boiled for exactly 20 minutes. Green beans for six.

The eggs? Slightly overdone. I usually make them in my pressure cooker, but it’s under recall at the moment. I’m avoiding the possibility of hot steam singeing my eyebrows or the whole thing exploding into my cabinets. So: boiled eggs it is.

And the anchovies? Glorious. Firm, silvery, headless—probably laid gently into their golden oil by cherubs. The expensive tuna, sadly, was flakes, not chunks. Perfect for one of my favorite non-Bourdain recipes: Golden Diner’s Tuna Melt. Worth every damn calorie. Trust me.

I invited a friend to join me since I’ve been eating alone all week—my husband’s still away. After finishing last week’s tomato soup, my appetite and ambition had gone into hiding. Some nights, it was cereal for dinner while watching No Reservations or Parts Unknown.

After a week of lazy-ass meals, the Salade Niçoise felt especially luxurious. No cereal tonight. The two of us ate nearly all four servings. No regrets.

If you’re craving something crisp, cool, and unapologetically French on a sweltering day when turning on the oven or standing over a hot burner feels like a personal insult…well, you know what to do. (Here’s a YouTube video to help.)

And before I forget, the unexpected find at that far away grocery store?

Wild boar.

Yep.

Saddle up, baby. It’s on!

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