Alright, it’s been a while. Let’s rewind a little bit to the holidays. The holidays were great. Why? I got a white Christmas, lots of good food, time with Jonah’s family, time with my family, and 3 new cookbooks. My sister Emily gave me this beautiful book called “Ripe” by Cheryl Sternman Rule (not to be confused by a cookbook by the same title by the author of “Tender”). Emblazoned with a beautiful peach on the cover, Ripe is perfect for the artistic/visual cook because it is arranged by color. That’s right, color. The first section is reds (tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, pomegranate, cranberries, etc.), followed by orange (carrots, butternut squash, clementines, kumquats…), yellow, green, purple and blue, and white. In each color are pages of produce, and for each produce item, one recipe. Yep, only one. I was excited to get this for many reasons: it’s pretty, the recipes look delicious, and because there’s only one recipe per main ingredient, it is forcing me to branch out and try things I haven’t tried before. For example, kumquats.

When I was growing up, my grandfather’s favorite restaurant in Tucson called Caruso’s, was a frequent stop when we went to visit. And because my sisters and cousin and I were all young, we had trouble sitting at a dinner table for an hour or 2, as my family often does. So we would always run around the restaurant. In front of the restaurant and out in the courtyard, there were many kumquat trees; I don’t think I realized that kumquats weren’t just little oranges, but their own entity entirely. We would stand under the trees, reaching up and plucking these little orange gems from the branches, and squealing when we bit into them because they were so sour (we didn’t realize at that age that the fruit just probably wasn’t ripe yet). This memory of kumquats has always been sweet for me, but because especially so when I lost my grandfather a couple years ago. Remembering him reach up into the branches to pick kumquats for his granddaughters and the wonderful meals we had with him at that restaurant will always make me smile. This is possibly my favorite thing about food: the memories that are associated with it, the adventures it takes us on, whether new or past.

Anyway, coming back from memory lane: Jonah and I owed my mom dinner. See, Jonah is making an album, and raised the funds with Kickstarter. My mom chose the option to have us make her dinner in exchange for her donation, and so we decided to use my new cookbook (and an old favorite, Plenty). We picked the kumquat arugula salad with currant-walnut vinaigrette. And it was wonderful. Light and rich at the same time thanks to the walnut oil. The little pieces of kumquat were like little bursts of brightness in this salad.