Arugula and Pear Salad

In my twenty-five years, I have never had a nick name that stuck.

Unless you count my mother calling me Angel, which I don’t.

To be honest, I would love a good nick name. I think they are so fun. I’d love to be Ringo, or Bravo or Geenie.

Really any name that would warrant and explanation to strangers would totally work for me.

For a brief time in my childhood my parents called me Angela Dangela. Not exactly a short nick name.

In college, my boyfriend and his roommates called me Zip. The origin of the name has a very long drawn out explanation that would probably only be funny if you’d had a couple adult beverages.

A girl in my sorority tried to make Sammi stick.

All tried to give me a nick name with no great success.

But the members of my softball team have given new life to my chances at a nick name and I’m going to try my best to help it stick.

This season we were given the option of having a name or nick name on the back of our jerseys.

I received an email from a co-worker on the team who suggest I be “burnt arugula.” Burnt because I had set something on fire the week before and arugula because he noticed I use it a lot and he thinks it sounds fancy.

Unfortunately, I poo pooed the idea and went with Crash, thinking that it would have a better chance of sticking and is totally accurate.

Well, despite my attempt to make Crash work, Arugula has become the dark nick name horse.

For whatever reason, the team decided I am definitely an arugula and now the name can be heard every time I get up to bat.

So from now on I would like you all to refer to me as Arugula. I will answer to Arugula and nothing but Arugula.

And in order to help you remember this and celebrate my name change, you should make this salad for dinner.

You will need…

1/2 cup walnut halves

5 to 6 cups arugula, cleaned and dried

2 ripe pears, thinly sliced

1 lemon

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 ounces Gorgonzola (get a piece that will crumble easily for you) or blue cheese crumbles

Start by combining the arugula and pear in a salad bowl.

Top the salad with the nuts and your blue cheese crumbles.

Whisk together or blend in a food processor the lemon juice and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad, toss and serve.

Love and Beer Floats

Arugula