Orange Vinaigrette Spinach Salad

Week 506, and the dark arriving early, the kitchen warm against the cold, the soups simmering, the bread rising. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Thomas at Shabbat weekly; his chair; table expanding. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made Shabbat chicken dinner this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The chicken was already roasting, the challah already cooling on the rack, and Thomas’s chair was pulled up to its place at the table — and a table that is expanding, I have learned, needs one more thing: something bright and alive to set beside the warmth. This salad has been part of my Shabbat rotation for years precisely because it takes almost no time and yet it looks like you planned it, like you thought of everything, which is the quiet ambition of every woman who has ever cooked for the people she loves. The orange vinaigrette does the work; you just have to remember to make it.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

8 cups fresh baby spinach, washed and dried
2 navel oranges, peeled and cut into segments
1/4 medium red onion, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup dried cranberries
For the orange vinaigrette:
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (from about 1 orange)
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Toast the almonds. In a small dry skillet over medium heat, toast the sliced almonds, stirring frequently, for 3 to 4 minutes until golden and fragrant. Transfer to a plate and let cool completely — they will crisp as they cool.
Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the orange juice, orange zest, white wine vinegar, honey, and Dijon mustard until combined. While whisking constantly, drizzle in the olive oil in a slow, steady stream until the dressing is emulsified and slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust as needed — add a touch more honey if your oranges are tart.
Prepare the salad base. In a large salad bowl, combine the baby spinach, orange segments, red onion, and dried cranberries. Arrange gently so the orange segments don’t break apart.
Dress and finish. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad — start with about half and add more to taste. Toss gently to coat. Scatter the toasted almonds over the top. Serve immediately so the spinach stays crisp.

Nutrition (per serving)

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