Brasil Hangover Salad

Lovely lovely warm music-in-the-streets life-loving Rio. Very unlovely hangover. I won't claim this salad cured my hangover, but it did enable me to make it the few blocks to the beach and a fresh coconut full of life sustaining head clearing electrolyte-filled water. The salad took a whopping hour to make, but only on account of massive hangover slow motion.

The Baghdad version would have dried figs and dried coconut carted in from Jordan and no cilantro, unless we brought it in fresh from Amman and then got a hangover within three days before it went off and was forgotten in the depths of the fridge. If I really were hungover in Baghdad, by the way, I'd try to con Sara into going to the cafeteria for the spinach, since that's a long walk in the scorching sun with no coconuts or spontaneous bossa nova along the way. If she wouldn't, I'd probably eat the ingredients sans spinach in bed while watching reruns of Dead Like Me and whining.

Brasil Hangover Salad
2 cups spinach
1 large handful cilantro, de-stemmed
1/4 cup shredded coconut, fresh (2 T if dried)
1 mango, cubes
2 figs, sliced
2 T almonds
1 T pumpkin seeds
1 T sunflower seeds
1 t balsamic vinegar
1 t olive oil
1 t lavender pepper

Toss in a big bowl, and mind the knife in your hungover state...

P.S. Have you had this new-fangled lavender pepper? It's black pepper mixed with dried lavender buds and a touch of sea salt. It adds an incredible little note to salads and veggies. (You can make your own by adding dried lavender to your pepper grinder and giving it a shake). Be careful about getting carried away with this new taste sensation and over-peppering, as you don't want to choke on a particularly peppery mouthful. Just sayin'.

Snack on This: Curry Sesame Seeds, Garam Masala Cashews and Chili Macadamias

Flavored sesame seeds - like kale chips (which have reached rock star status in 2011) - seem to be for sale all over the place. This is because, like kale chips, they're pretty damn delicious. But, they're expensive, so I wanted to make my own. And, I happened to have on hand an obscene amount of raw sunflower seeds. Why? Half advanced planning, half crazed hoarding. Every time I'm out of Baghdad, I fill my suitcase with food. Since I'm never sure how long it will be until I can get more raw cocoa and maca powder, coconut, sunflower seeds, goji berries, mulberries, agave and crack (I mean Nama Shoyu), I tend to ... let's say stock up. Amazon selling everything in bulk doesn't help (six bags of coconut in one go? Why not?) This is how I ended up with something like twelve pounds of raw sesame seeds stuffed in a kitchen cabinet in Baghdad. One can only eat so much sesame butter (which we have to make in tiny half-way-to-butter batches in our coffee grinder due to broken food processor situation.)

Flavored seeds and nuts, as it turns out, are incredibly easy to make. All you do is toss with flavoring and a bit of agave date syrup or maple syrup, then dehydrate. We use our oven as a dehydrator (it has amazing 30 and 40 degree Celsius settings and a convection fan setting), but in a normal dehydrator I think you'd go 6-8 hours.

Riffing on the same theme, I made some garam masala cashews, which all mysteriously disappeared from my desk drawer before I had any (eh hem, Ahmed.) I've also had delicious chili macadamia nuts, which are made the same way - toss with agave date syrup or maple syrup and chili powder, then dehydrate. Invest in really raw nuts, especially cashews if you can (Navitas sells them). Because of something or other to do with how the nut is extracted from the shell using heat, apparently many raw cashews aren't actually raw, they're just not roasted post-shell cracking. Also, since 2007, apparently American raw almonds aren't really raw, but pasteurized, but they're allowed to label them as raw anyway. Check out One Lucky Duck for really-raw almonds from Spain.

The flavor difference between "raw" nuts and really raw nuts is amazing. You won't regret it.

Curry Sesame Seeds / Garam Masala Cashews / Chili Macadamias

A big bowl of raw sesame seeds / cashews / Macadamias

A few tablespoons of curry powder / garam masala / chili powder

A tablespoon or two of agave date syrup or maple syrup - enough to make them sticky and the powder latch on

Mix up well; adjust curry and agave to your taste preference. Spread on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate 6-8 hours, or until no longer wet and sticky. Don't over dry. Store in a Ziploc - will keep for several weeks. Don't leave in your desk drawer if colleagues sneak in and eat your food.