Artichoke and sun-dried tomato salad

I have to brag a little: I’ve quit smoking. Well, touch wood, I’m in the process of quitting. I haven’t smoked for a week. That’s quite a while, all the same. It’s driving me up the wall and I want to stuff my face.

And I mean really stuff my face. So sometimes I have to dream up, shall we say, healthy snacks. Like this salad, or perhaps I should call it a raw veg salad, with tomatoes, artichokes and capers.

But back to the smoking. I’m hardly getting on in years yet, but I’ve smoked (ugh, I used to smoke) for quite a while. Since I was 19.

In a way I was always quite pleased that I hadn’t started smoking as a brat, that I’d been an adult and made a conscious choice. As a kid I’d got my dad to quit (something Mum kept reminding me of right up until a week ago). The way I got into smoking regularly was rather interesting. In my first year at university I’d have the odd smoke with my cousin Olek at a party. Meaning, if we went for a beer, we smoked. But during the day, sober (let’s call it that), we didn’t.

I don’t know, I can’t remember if I’ve written about how I first went to Mongolia. I mean how it came about. One winter evening, at a jazz gig at Piec Art on Szewska Street in Kraków (we went to gigs there every week, about 30 times a year), I floated an idea (I’ll spare you the details, it’s a long story): “Listen, how about going to Mongolia in the summer holidays?” I was talking to about twenty friends. Everyone was up for it. But by the time we were actually leaving, it was down to me and Olek. So off we went.

Back to the fags. We still only smoked occasionally then (you could still smoke in bars, and a jazz gig was the perfect time for a cigarette). As we were getting ready for Mongolia, we looked into what to take. We read that a carton of cigarettes was a good thing to have along as a gift. Mongolians smoke a lot (true enough, and back then people smoked literally everywhere there. It was the first time in my life I’d seen people smoking on a city bus). Cigarettes in Poland weren’t particularly cheap by then, and since we were taking the Trans-Siberian Railway, we decided to buy a carton in Moscow.

So we bought a carton of Chesterfield Blues (those cigarettes always make me think of the great Remarque and his Arch of Triumph). Except that once we got going on the train (5 days on board all told) and met the absolutely wonderful Russians who were our travelling companions, we spent rather a lot of time in the komnata dlya kureniya, the smoking room. Our carton was gone by Irkutsk (after 4 days). And it wasn’t because our companions had been helping themselves.

So I got hooked on the way there and then in Mongolia itself. We smoked a frightening amount. Driving to the Gobi in our UAZ ambulance, every hour came the order “cigareten pauzen”, basically just because our English women friends wouldn’t let us smoke in the vehicle. Those were the days. The Wild West (well, East, actually).

I smoked for 15 years. Once I quit for a year (yes, a whole year). I haven’t smoked for a week. I’m a smoker (sic!).

Heh. Well, yes. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll stick it out. For how long? I admit I like smoking. Lately the smoking itself hasn’t given me much pleasure. I mean the smoke. In fact, I’ve never liked it. For over 10 years, for instance, I wouldn’t have dreamt of lighting up in the car, or even in the flat. I don’t like the smell of cigarette smoke in a car, a house or any room. I hate smoking rooms. They stink to high heaven. Even in the bitterest cold I used to go out into the garden to smoke. What I like, or liked (I can feel it after just a week), is the routine: stepping outside, taking a break. Doing something. A social break (at work it’s usually when you talk about absolutely nothing).

I like having something to do when I’m standing on the patio, in the garden or on the balcony. I hate being idle. When I go outside, I want to do something. Smoking met that need.

But I’ve quit. The reason was, or is, pretty straightforward. Smoking is evil. It’s shit. It does you harm. Ninka has asked me again and again to quit (just as I once asked my dad). “Daddy, why do you smoke? Don’t smoke. My friend in reception said her grandad smoked and died because of it. I don’t want you to die.” Sweetheart. My own grandad, as it happens, smoked from the age of 6 to 76. He died at 92.

I didn’t quit because it’s bloody expensive. Though smoking certainly isn’t cheap. A pack cost 14 złoty (I’d been smoking black Marlboros lately). I smoked nearly a pack a day. About 27 packs a month. 27 packs times 14 days: 378 PLN a month. A fair bit. I quit because I hate that cough in the morning and throughout the day. A smoker’s cough is horrible. It’s been plaguing me for ages, and it still does.

And I’m trying to quit because Ninka asked me to. So keep your fingers crossed. I don’t know if I’ll last. Especially since I’m terrified of putting on weight, which at my current weight would be a disaster. So I’m trying not to eat like a maniac, and when I feel like it, to make myself salads like this one.

This one was born of the need of the moment. I wasn’t smoking, so I wanted to pig out. I had one tomato and some sun-dried tomatoes in the fridge, and I remembered those artichokes in the jar. So I threw something together in no time. It was quick and really tasty. Give it a try.

PS

Mum rang. “You’ve added 3 years to your grandad’s age.” So now you know there are reasons to give up the fags besides that tiresome cough 😉

At a glance: 

Prep time: 8 minutes

Serves: one (that’s one, in words)

Calories: none

Ingredients for a tasty summer salad (could just as easily be a winter one):

• 1 medium raspberry tomato
• 6 Italian sun-dried tomatoes (packed in olive oil)
• 5 pieces of artichoke (packed in olive oil)
• 20 capers (in vinegar)
• freshly cut thyme (literally a dozen or so little leaves)
• 1 medium shallot
• salt
• ground black pepper
• olive oil

Method (extra quick):

I chopped the shallot finely and put it in a bowl. I diced the tomatoes on a paper towel (laid on a wooden chopping board so the excess water and seeds come away from the tomatoes) and added them to the bowl. I cut the sun-dried tomatoes into fairly thin strips and put those in the bowl too. I did the same with the artichokes.

I added the capers to the bowl with the other vegetables and mixed everything thoroughly. In went the freshly picked thyme leaves. I seasoned with salt and pepper, poured in about a tablespoon of olive oil and mixed it all well. That’s it. Enjoy!