I told my dear friend and colleague Cathy Whims, co-owner of Portland’s renowned restaurant Nostrana, that I was “stealing her recipe” after I ate this dish at her restaurant. The simplicity of the preparation was obvious, yet the overlay of flavors was complex and memorable. It’s a winner!

Consider this a still life: crisp-tender green beans, voluptuous grilled figs, and toasted walnuts slicked with nut oil. This is food as art, especially when crumbles of creamy-white goat cheese spill over a field of garden hues-brilliant green, blue-black, and burnished brown.

This salad partners well with the chicken sauté and can be served before, after, or at the same time as the main course. Many supermarkets sell prewashed and trimmed spinach in plastic bags. The greens usually don’t need washing and stay fresh for several days in the refrigerator. Refer to the dressing as a “Dijon… Read More

Packaged shredded carrots streamline the assembly of this salad. It is a colorful and healthy side dish to a grilled main course, especially if you also serve some grilled zucchini or asparagus and skip a starch altogether. This salad is a favorite of mine when I am grilling lamb, and it would complement any of… Read More

I’ve paired salmon and fennel several times in this book and there is a reason for it: They make a gorgeous marriage of taste, texture, and color. Here the fennel is thinly sliced, partnered with peppery arugula, and tossed with a lemon vinaigrette. A quickly pan-seared salmon fillet sits on top of a mound of… Read More

Forget Caesar: A bang-up Cleopatra salad The classic the way it was meant to be-garlic fragrant, anchovy sly, and elegantly adorned with a pyramid of sliced lemon-grilled chicken.

For me, persimmons and pomegranates are two treasured fruits of winter. There is only a short gap between the luscious September tomatoes I love to add to salads and the crisp, sweetly acidic persimmons I use as their cold-weather substitute. Use the squat, tomato-shaped Fuyu persimmon for this salad. The skins should be orange-red, smooth,… Read More

Beauty isn’t the only thing this salad brings to the table—it is a mosaic of complementary textures and fresh spring flavors. I found magenta-centered watermelon radishes at Food Front coop in Northwest Portland, but if you can’t track them down substitute another radish variety. Castelvetranos are big, buttery, bright green olives that are found at… Read More

This is a refreshing, not-too-assertive cabbage and cellophane noodle-based salad. The dressing includes toasted sesame seeds, which you can buy, but it’s better to buy raw sesame seeds and toast them as directed to avoid the rancid flavors that sometimes accompany packaged toasted seeds.