This Salad Is a Lot of Work and Worth It

Plus, a savory galette and an alternative to ice cream

My partner Rick, who’s a baker and owner of this place called Bread and Salt in Jersey City, just finished a book (with me) that’s on track to come out from Knopf in the spring. I’m excited — and have Mark to thank for it — in part because he put Rick on the map back when we lived in Pittsburgh. Fast-forward several years and a pandemic later and Bread and How to Eat It was born. Sure there’s a little baking in it, but if Rick had his way, there wouldn’t be and it would feature entirely recipes on what to do with bread — dishes that have fallen out of fashion and, when you try them, you might wonder why.

There’s a whole section on things to eat with bread and the first recipe in today’s collection is one of them. It’s a bit of work, cooking green beans, making eggs, prepping greens, making chickpeas and potatoes, but it’s worth it. Rick has called it the Led Zeppelin salad — the greatest of all summer salads— that’s the star sometime in August. I recently asked him to make it, but he said the green beans aren’t quite right — “too fibrous.”