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Love. Eat. Share.

La bellezza del design e il piacere sottile dell'ottimo cibo. Stare insieme e condividere i piccoli e grandi momenti della vita.

Questa filosofia si riassume in tre parole: Love Eat Share, ovvero il nome della serata specialissima organizzata da LOVEThESIGN, SupperShare e Eataly per celebrare l'arrivo in Italia della piattaforma di social eating SupperShare (di cui vi abbiamo già raccontato qui).

It’s not often that I would say this, but Bart and Homer clearly had it wrong:  you can win friends with salad.  

Each Thursday at the Impact HUB in SoMa, our coworking space, we close our computers at 12.42pm and gather around to share a bowl of salad and actually talk (in that satisfyingly old-fashioned face-to-face kind of way).  Somehow this weekly gathering became known as the Sexy Salad Society, and we like to think of it as the most exclusive inclusive sexiest salad society in San Francisco (try saying that three times).

It’s usually simple fare - garden salad, beans, rice - but I think that’s part of the attraction.  At $2/head, and for an allocated time of 18 minutes, you can’t kid yourself that you could buy something cheaper, faster or healthier from the neighboring shops or food trucks.  And while you’re helping yourself to a simple, healthy lunch, you may as well make friends with the people you pass in the corridors or see at the printer.

I kind of like the fact that the food is unfussy.  I have previously had workplace potlucks escalate into semi-competitive events (which is fun in the short-term but hard to sustain when you’re up at 11pm the night before making shortcrust pastry for your rustic quiche that you brought along because that’s just the kind of casually impressive mid-week cook you happen to be).  It also emphasises that a meal doesn’t have to be fancy in order to create a special experience.

SupperShare’s co-founder Kim leads the charge every week to serve salad to the hungry masses as they connect with each other between bites. For her, a dining experience doesn’t have to be an expensive, long-winded affair, but an opportunity to break bread and make new friends. Beyond Sexy Salad Society, each week, SupperShare hosts use simple food as a tool to connect with others in more meaningful ways and to give back.

I’m on a mission to consume my body weight in peaches this Summer, so this week I made a peach tabbouleh.  It’s one of the recipes that I discovered when looking through Nigel Slater’s book Tender the other week and it’s currently on high rotation in my household.  It takes all of about 10 minutes to prepare, fits the $2/head budget, and yet somehow still feels quite indulgent.  I guess that’s the magic of perfectly ripe Summer peaches.  Kim teamed it with a simple Greek salad and Gigantes, an herbed white bean and tomato dish.

Some of my (new) Sexy Salad Society friends asked for the tabbouleh recipe, so I thought I’d post it here for our SupperSharers.  Maybe it will inspire you to make some new friends in your workplace ... or serve at your next Supper!

Peach tabbouleh (Nigel Slater)

1 ½ cups bulgur

6 slim spring onions

4 ripe peaches

a small, hot red chilli

1 bunch mint

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley

1 bunch cilantro

juice of a lemon

olive oil

Pour the bulgur into a bowl and just cover with boiling water, then set aside.

Finely chop the chilli, then roughly chop the spring onions, mint, parsley, and cilantro. Dice the peaches into bite-sized pieces.

One of the nice things about being part of SupperShare in the Bay Area is that you certainly don’t feel like Robinson Crusoe.  You don’t have to look too far to find like-minded souls.  More often than not, I don’t get too far into telling people about SupperShare before they’re nodding in agreement and telling me about how they’re involved in something that shares similar aims, or asking me how they can get involved in SupperShare.  (Just FYI, the answer to the second part of that is quite simple – check out suppershare.com and just sign yourself up for one of the dinners that are going on across the city).

Anyway, when Kim and I were introduced to Leah from Wild Soul, we had one of those moments, where we realized that each of our projects come from shared values and have a lot in common.  They’re both about bringing people together around food (but outside of the stodgy restaurant scene).  They’re about finding new ways to build connections and create a sense of community.

I would love to be able to tell you about attending a Wild Soul breakfast club.  Every month, Wild Soul holds a small breakfast event at a secret location that brings together an interesting crew of people over healthy, homemade food made by different guest chefs.  But it seems it’s so popular that it’s booked out for the next couple of months.  So maybe ask me about it in September.

In the meantime, I (or you) stand a fighting chance of being able to go to one of their regular farm-to-table events.  These events combine yoga, food and farming in delightfully unusual settings.  The idea is to allow us to open up and have the same kind of unexpected experiences that we have when we’re traveling, but closer to home.  Just like SupperShare, Wild Souls is about challenging our ideas about what is public space and what is private space.  When we disrupt those assumptions, we are more open to start sharing in different and more meaningful ways.  It’s also just kind of interesting to change your scene and meet new people in unexpected surroundings.

Here at SupperShare, we take our work very seriously.  Zach is hosting an island-themed SupperShare next week and when I emailed him for a recipe, he replied from Tobago.  Presumably, he’s researching from a beach-side bungalow.  

I’m a total newbie at cocktail-making, so I asked Zach a couple of introductory questions about his signature mojito:

Why the mojito?  

I like that the sugar (originally from sugar cane juice) adds a sense of place to any sugar growing culture, but particularly Cuba.

What can go wrong with a mojito?  (ie any rookie errors to avoid)

Avoid too much sugar or lime juice beyond drinkers’ preference.  Try to be careful with the mint, only to gently bruise it and not torture it (but it still tastes good either way).

Any mojito protocol?  (ie controversies that the mojito novice might unwittingly stumble on)

Not sure - perhaps the name?  I like thinking of it as giving you ‘mojo’.

Most memorable mojito?

Adding a nugget of cucumber, like the ones at my SupperShare ...

Inspired by Zach’s dedication to SupperShare, I decided to test out his mojito recipe.  You’re welcome, SupperShare readers.    

Zach’s Island Mojito

10 mint leaves

Ring of cucumber

Juice of 1 lime (about 1 tbsp)

1 tsp sugar (or sugar syrup)

2 oz rum

Soda water

Step 1: Muddle the mint leaves, cucumber, lime juice, and sugar.

Step 2: Add rum and stir (to dissolve the sugar)

Step 3: Shake with ice

Step 4: Top with soda water

The verdict?  Delicious.  I think that the main rookie error that I made was adding too much soda water.  The mint leaves probably felt a little more tortured than Zach would have liked too.  Oh, and I got distracted with the cocktail-making and totally omitted the cucumber.  

So, basically, there are two take-home messages from my experience:

1.  Even if you totally mess up the recipe, it’s still delicious; and

2.  Practice makes perfect (and I fully intend to keep practicing until it’s perfect).