Orange-persimmon salad & red rice (Thankfulness #19)

Thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes etc yesterday... today was a MUCH better day on every level. Basically any day that I'm at home with my family is going to be a good day, and today was really nice. In part because I got the most incredible, most thoughtful package of presents I think I've ever gotten from *anyone*, which leads right into:

Thing I'm thankful for #19: how incredibly thoughtful, caring, and generous totally random strangers can be.



Now I don't even know how to start to explain this package to anyone who isn't familiar with the Switch Witch secret Santa-esque swaps on the BPAL forums. (If that means nothing to you, don't worry, just roll with it.) But let me put it this way: someone who got randomly paired up with me spent like two months straight paying attention to all the dumb stuff I say online and figuring out what my interests etc are, and then used that information to put together a package of things that she knew would delight me. EVERY thing in this package was so incredibly tailored to my tastes that I teared up a little opening it because sheesh, how incredibly sweet and nice and wonderful. I am so, so, so touched by this.

I hope the package that I sent out made my recipient (yet another person) feel half as good as this one made me feel.

On the food front: we actually ate something really tasty and not totally boring for dinner tonight. I saw this recipe for Persimmon & Orange Salad in the New York Times earlier this week and really wanted to try it even though I usually don't really find the idea of savory things and sweet things together appealing. I made about a 3/4 recipe and served it on top of Bhutanese red rice (another random grain from my random grain cabinet) cooked in a bit of veggie broth. It made enough that Josh and I could have good sized portions with a small amount leftover... I really don't think a full recipe would serve 8-10 but perhaps as a (smallish) side.



Salad before dishing out.



Salad with dressing & rice.

It was actually really quite tasty... the dressing made the flavors pop and helped it not feel overwhelmingly sweet. I loved the pairing of the persimmon and the orange. Persimmon is one of my favorite west coast fruit discoveries but I skipped them last year (can't remember why) and was so happy to be reunited. The only thing I felt like the salad was missing was like nuts or something. Maybe toasted walnuts? Maybe next time.

The Emperor ate some orange slices and a couple of bites of rice but honestly, he was still full from GORGING himself on pumpkin flax cookies that were in that awesome package earlier in the day. Really-- I got 2 cookies out of I'm not sure how many. (8? 10?) They were so good, but he was enjoying them SO much that I ceded some of my cookie rights to him. The things we do for love, people... I guess I felt a little generous myself this afternoon.

Here he is post-cookies. I should have taken a video because he was saying "THANK YOU FOR COOKIES, FRIEND!" over and over.