Erica De Mane

Winter, by Anselm Kiefer.

Recipe below: Dead of Winter Salad, with Celery, Fennel, Raw Cremini, and Moliterno

February in New York can feel stagnant. White gray hangs in the air. Depending on how you look at it, it can be creepy or contemplative. I work on contemplative, but I don’t always succeed. Staring at paint color charts and drinking too much red wine is usually how I get through. But this time around I’ve found that eating raw food helps, too.

Anything I can get down raw, I do. Wet, crunchy, bare, for flavor and for beauty, a life force when most things are at rest. Raw mushrooms, for the most part, have pretty good flavor. Sometimes the button types taste a bit like toothpaste to me, but not in an altogether bad way. Cremini and portobello, blown up versions of the button variety, can taste that way, but they’re good with a simple vinaigrette. Unfortunately most of their nutrients emerge only with cooking, so I eat them infrequently.

I really wanted raw the other night, and I remembered the classic Italian salad of celery, raw mushrooms—often porcini—and Parmigiano, sliced thin and dressed with a little olive oil and vinegar. Treat yourself to an excellent olive oil this winter. It’ll help, I know this for a fact. I just got a new bottle of Ravidá.

So this salad got made, with the addition of fennel and Moliterno cheese (see note below). It tastes like a crisp, sunny winter day, which we haven’t had much of around here lately.

A note on cheese for this salad: Moliterno is an aged pecorino laced with truffles. I bought myself a chunk as a special treat, and it wound up in this salad. It certainly adds another dimension, but any not-too-sharp pecorino should work, such as a cacio Toscano or a manchego. Maybe not Romano, as most of what we get here is harsh.

Dead of Winter Salad, with Celery, Fennel, Raw Cremini, and Moliterno

(Serves 4)

4 tender celery stalks, thinly sliced on an angle, plus the leaves from a whole bunch
2 fennel bulbs, thinly sliced, plus a handful of fronds
About 10 cremini mushrooms, very thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled and lightly smashed
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper
A chunk of Moliterno or another not-too-sharp pecorino

Choose a good-looking, relatively wide, and not so deep salad bowl. Put in it the celery, fennel, mushrooms, fennel fronds and celery leaves.

Whisk the garlic, rice wine vinegar, olive oil, and soy sauce together, adding a little salt.

Pour the dressing over the salad, grind on some black pepper, and toss gently. Pull out the garlic. Shave the Moliterno or another pecorino over the top. Serve it forth.