May 16, 2013  This will be a quick post because I’m in the middle of making supper, but when I spun the arugula for our salad and opened the spinner, this is exactly what I found. I see posts on Facebook all the time by friends who frequent coffee bars and whose cappuccinos sport hearts or ying-yang symbols or phallic symbols in their frothy heads. Frankly, I think baristas are having a good time playing with people’s superstitions and sleepiness and/or vulnerabilities, and more power to them for trying to please their customers and get bigger tips. How this arugula leaf ended up dead center like this is beyond me.

A few months ago on one of the Facebook groups I’m a member of — probably one of the more hoity-toity culinary ones, someone asked for a list of kitchen gadgets folks could do without. Among them were many single-use items: egg slicers come to mind. I myself have no use for a double boiler because I rig one by placing a bowl with slanted sides over a pot of boiling water: it’s much easier to whisk in a wide bowl than in the top of a standard double boiler with its straight sides. All sorts of devices were mentioned — almost none of them I have. But I was astounded to see so many people decry the salad spinner. I don’t know what I’d do without mine (and until I moved to Bulgaria, I never had much more than a galley for a kitchen: I tested all of the recipes for all four of my cookbooks in what had been a closet!). My salad spinner is an Italian one I’ve had for years. It has a hole in the top to let running water in, and holes in the bottom so that water can drain out. It cleans and dries at the same time. It has a drawstring, which retracts automatically, that you pull as though you were starting a lawn mower. The inner basket is removable. I did have to replace the string — which is a sturdy nylon ribbon — once, but I wrote the company and they sent me a new one. I use it at least once, and usually twice, each day.

So don’t be hatin’ on my salad spinner. Especially when it provides me with such stellar “spin art.” Remember that from the county fairs? Traditional Bulgarian pottery also reminds me of spin art.  But, really, I need to go stir my ragù. Tonight’s dinner is orecchiette al sugo d’agnello. With the pasta with lamb, we’ll have an arugula salad with lovely spring onions and cherry tomatoes, which are coming in from the hothouses in southern Bulgaria now.

Buon appetito!