Salsa Verde (Page 890)

RECIPE #757

• Date: Friday, June 6, 2008 -- 8pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: Matty's Apartment
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I was looking for a quick sauce that could be served with veggies, and this one fit the bill. This salsa verde claimed it would jazz up my steamed veggies, but it didn't have quite as much jazz to it as I had hoped. The recipe was largely parsley-based, and I like parsley just fine, but in huge quantities I find it to be not so appealing. The capers, shallots, and anchovy paste gave the salsa a nice flavor though. It had a bit of a briny kick to it, which I appreciated. I served it with some asparagus (as you can see!) but I think it would have better served a piece of meat. Overall, I had no serious complaints about this salsa but I wasn't terribly excited about it either. In an otherwise excellent meal this was the one dish that was just ok.

This sauce is the salsa verde part of this recipe.

I just took a shower and am now curled up in bed at the end of day two of the workshop in Denmark. I am exhausted! Walking home from dinner tonight, someone said, "I can't believe we have only been here two days!" It is difficult to believe. The days have been jam-packed with math (talks, study sessions, problem sessions...). Today I tried to meet some new people. There are about 110 participants at the workshop, and of those I probably know 20-30 of them pretty well and another 20 or so casually. But that leaves a lot of people that I haven't met! It is tempting to just hang out and work with the people you know, but that misses one of the big points of these conferences. Yes, you go to them to learn from the talks, but you also go to meet new people, hear what the are working on, and get to know your colleagues. So today I made a point of meeting some new people. I did pretty well. I spent some time talking to at least five or six people that I had never talked to before.

I am always a little wary of introducing myself to new people because occasionally I accidentally introduce myself to someone I have met several times before. Whoops! It's a little bit unfair -- these things are pretty gender imbalanced (for instance, of the 110 participants in this workshop I would estimate that there are 10-15 women), so I think the men tend to remember the few women present, whereas I couldn't possibly remember every man at every conference. Nonetheless, it is embarrassing to introduce yourself and have someone respond, "Yeah, we've met." In one spectacularly bad showing I introduced myself to someone I had not only already met, but someone whom I had spent a whole week hanging out with at a conference only a couple years earlier. I didn't recognize him, and I introduced myself. Whoops. That was a few years ago and he and I have since become friends, so I think all is forgiven! Anyway, I learned my lesson - now I always wait for people to ask me for my name first!