Bez - Salad love: how to create a lunchtime salad, every weekday, in 20 minutes or less

To my mum. To my family. Publishing Director: Jane OShea Creative Director: Helen Lewis Senior Editor: Cline Hughes Designer and Photographer: David Bez Production: Vincent Smith, Aysun Hughes, Leonie Kellman, Sasha Hawkes First published in 2014 by Quadrille Publishing Limited Pentagon House 5254 Southwark Street London SE1 1UN www.quadrille.co.uk Text 2014 David Bez Photography 2014 David Bez, except photograph on 2014 Michele Turriani Design and layout 2014 Quadrille Publishing Limited The rights of the author have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. eISBN: 978 184949 812 8 CONTENTS Im not a chef; Im a designer and food lover raised in Milan. eISBN: 978 184949 812 8 CONTENTS Im not a chef; Im a designer and food lover raised in Milan.

This is a book about why I love salads, what inspired me to make a new one every day and how you can do the same. It wont teach you how to cook it is a collection of salad combinations that Ive actually prepared and eaten. Im not a food stylist or a food photographer but I made these plates of salad for my lunch and photographed them before tucking in. They were made at my desk in my office, when I have just an hour (sometimes half) to get my lunch and eat it, like most people. Sure, there are a lot of things you can buy on the high street, at restaurants (too expensive) or pre-prepared from the supermarket (not as fresh as I would like). I wanted something healthy, fresh, tasty and quick and often thats difficult to find.

I like good food and Im quite fussy about it. I know Im not alone. For most nine-to-fivers, lunch is a functional moment in the day, merely a way to replenish and its rarely a pleasure. I do not see it that way: my Italian genes scream loudly and refuse to surrender to eating any old thing. Moreover, I dont trust how shops and supermarkets select and process their so-called healthy foods. I care about where my ingredients have been sourced and how they have been put together.

I dont want them to contain weird chemicals with crazy scientific names. I want to be able to choose something that is truly healthy, not healthier or even worse, fake healthy like some low-fat but sugar-loaded yoghurts or cereals. Ive been reading a lot about nutrition, eating seasonally, the properties of various ingredients, vegetarianism, veganism, raw veganism, blood pH levels, local farming, organic farming, and so on. As a result, I feel more knowledgeable on many food-related issues (although sometimes I feel more confused than ever is soy milk good for you or not?!) The basic principle that most people seem to agree on is that we need to eat a lot of grains and fresh fruits and vegetables, not just because its better for us, but because its better for the planet as well. Its as simple as that! I have another simple lunch rule: I want to finish my lunch feeling energised and ready to work. If I feel tired and sleepy, that is not a good meal.

On top of that, I always try to buy organic, fairtrade, sustainable and locally sourced as much as I can. Why? Im a dad, I care about the future of my son, and yes, I know it sounds grandiose, but together, simply by changing our dietary habits, we can all can make an impact, and our choices can give us a better world. In order to be able to eat the healthy, fresh food I wanted, I decided to prepare my own lunch every day in the office. I wanted these meals to be something easy enough to prepare at my desk. Mind you, there arent that many things you can prepare at your desk, especially if you hate the microwave. Yes, I hate the microwave.

I have never liked the idea of warming up pre-prepared food in a plastic box. While I love to cook at home, cooking in the office is not practical, so I had to compromise. Some ingredients the fresh ones could be brought to the office and refrigerated; others could be prepared in the office with a kettle (or even a hot water dispenser); and others could be brought in pre-cooked (such as last nights dinner leftovers). I started by doing a weekly shop on Monday morning, buying enough ingredients for the week ahead, plus a little more, just in case. I always looked at what was in season and, depending on my mood, I relied on a mixture of improvisation and planning. And the food that was left over on Friday afternoons I brought home.

I kept my fresh ingredients in the communal fridge, taking up a whole shelf (my colleagues probably hate me as a result). I transformed my desk drawer into kitchen storage area, keeping essential tools there like a chopping board, a proper knife, a small salad spinner, a tin opener and some dried ingredients like spices, tinned beans, nuts and dried fruits (some of which I also snacked on during the day). And every day at lunchtime I turned my desk into a little kitchen countertop, creating temporary havoc chaotic but controlled. That is, until I started cutting raw beetroot and get my hands all bloody just before a big meeting. Now, I wear latex gloves when Im dealing with that sort of dangerous stuff. I find myself relaxing quite a lot while I chop and mix, shuck and rinse.

My lunch break has become a little zen moment. Its not just a matter of preparing and eating, its the pleasure of smelling and feeling the ingredients and flavours of the food. There is an interesting mindfulness when you allow yourself to be silent and concentrate on the task at hand. You can also free up your senses, even for just 15 minutes. Preparing food is a very rich sensory experience. There are not just colours and shapes to exploit, but new experiments using unscripted combinations of texture, taste, aroma and visual appeal.

I use my imagination to make each lunch break an exciting exploration of as-yet-unexplored food terrains. As soon as I began making these balanced, nutritious salads, my colleagues were immediately attracted to the idea and kept wanting to tuck into my creations. What are you preparing there? they would constantly ask. What a great smell of basil! they exclaimed. Everyone was fascinated by my culinary flights of salad fancy. So it occurred to me that they might be of interest to a wider audience and I started to take pictures and post them on a blog.

It has now been three years since I began creating a new and different lunch every day. Really! Three years! I cant believe the number of combinations Ive created some extremely delicious, some really good, others Ive learnt a lot along the way and Ive definitely honed my skills. It took three years to find the magic formula. Most of all, I wanted to demonstrate that I could make a healthy lunch at my desk but, just as importantly, I wanted what I was eating to be a yummy, sophisticated and complete meal. I believe I have succeeded, but its up to you to decide. When I first embarked on the project, I didnt know how to begin.