I grew up in a household virtually free of beets. My dad did not, and I think still does not, like beets. In college, I started to experiment with beets and found I didn’t mind them. It’s only in the past year that I’ve started to fully appreciate the glory of the beet. They were big on beets at Blackbird, where I was briefly employed during the past summer, so I became familiar with the process of roasting, slicing, and tossing beets in salad. And then just last week, with beet matchsticks left over from beetza, I put raw beets on a sandwich.

In addition to beets, there was

• Multigrain Bread
• Sprouts
• Turkey
• Mayo

I was really surprised by how much I liked raw beets. They were crunchy, giving a real bite to the sandwich, and still had that characteristic beet sweetness, just less so than if they had been roasted. Less sweetness is almost always a good thing! So, the moral of the story is, beets: not just for roasting!

While this won’t blow anybody’s mind for  being on the cutting edge of exotic ingredients, I have discovered recently that I have a deep love for harissa. At first I was just using it as it was called for in North African recipes, but I eventually realized that it works in a lot more. It is great on buffalo burgers with brie cheese. On New Years day I discovered that it helped to make a great spicy thousand island dressing. And, this weekend, the greatest revelation of all: as I was searching desperately for something to eat for lunch, I found a can of tuna (in olive oil). I grew up eating tuna mixed with mayo on saltine crackers (with yellow cheese and green olives!). This time, I thew a little harissa in with the tuna and ate the resulting mixture on rye hardtack with spicy pickles. It was good.

So if you need some spice and smoke with a peppery body to hold it up, I recommend getting a jar of harissa. As far as I can tell, it keeps a long time. I have had my jar in the fridge for well over six months, and I haven’t died yet.