Trendy Monday: Pistachios

Hope everybody had a great fourth of July, semi-miserable weather and all. We had a good one, including some excellent steakburgers courtesy of Roseda Farm (about which I'll write more later).

But that's for later. Right now, it's Monday morning and I'm really and truly back to my weekly routine. So, today: it's trendy, and it's pistachios.

Even before Stephanie's braised pistachio upset on the Top Chef finale (and I am still trying to figure out what her braising liquid was), I had pistachios on the brain. They've been popping up on menus all over the place, often in salads and regularly paired with goat cheese. I'm a giant fan of goat cheese salads, and I think pistachios, with their meaty, slightly sweet insides and soft but salty exteriors, are an amazing foil for most types of lettuce and for the tang of the cheese.

Last night, I made a spinach salad with strawberries, goat cheese, pistachios and a simple champagne vinaigrette (I'd made a similar salad, but with honey-roasted pecans and a white balsamic vinaigrette, on Friday). My favorite thing about salad is it's flexibility - it's easy to taste individual flavors, but it's also simple to meld flavors together in one bite. In last night's salad, the flavors in one bite were an excellent fit.

So that's today's hot item: pistachios.

Also, watermelon salads (which I have been pushing for years, much to Cooper's chagrin). But that's another post entirely...