Purple reigns

Yep, that salad is purple — deal with it.

The other day, I found half a head of purple (or red) cabbage in back of the fridge’s vegetable crisper. It must have been sitting there for a good two weeks or so, but unlike its more “ordinary” relative, the savoy, which would have positively languished after all that time, this one was still edible: only the outer layer had wilted (I learned just a moment ago that purple cabbage keeps better than its greener cousins).

Anything leafy, crunchy and colorful has “salad” written all over it. With purple cabbage, it’s impossible not to notice. That color’s just too damn vivid, man. Unnatural, even. Eggplants are the same color, sure, but this one’s purple to the core. It certainly takes the concept of eating one’s greens on its head.

I know, I know: Deal with it. In any case, the salad was a winner. Just going by the photo you wouldn’t know it was made from odds and ends: carrot (another straggler), sweet onion, almonds from my mother’s stash, and arugula from the garden (or what was left of it in the aftermath of Typhoon Frank). Pineapple rounded out the cast, simply because it was there and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to rid the icebox of more clutter. So sue me.

Oh, there was lemon, too, the juice and grated zest of which went with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, three of olive oil, a pinch of salt and freshly cracked black pepper to make the vinaigrette. Shaken and chilled, it went well with the salad.

A word of advice: Don’t make the mistake of mixing the dressing with the veggies unless you’re ready to serve the whole thing. I’m not saying I did, but there’s a good reason why purple cabbage is used as a pH indicator, and though I barely passed high-school chemistry, I can tell you that the damn thing bleeds like heck. If it can do that to your salad, I dare you to imagine what it’ll do to your ordure — again, not that I checked mine (though I really should have). It’s bad enough that cabbage causes flatulence, but purple poo? Now there’s something you don’t see everyday…