la.foodblogging

Though it’s still technically Spring until mid-June, LA is already hitting summer numbers on the thermometer - creating just the right climate for a carefree caprese salad – milky mozzarella, soft, supple, a perfectly smooth complexion for the naturally bright yet simple round slices of the tang-colored tomatoes. Lucky for us in LA, tomato season starts early, ends late, and local farms cover a wide range of varieties.

Mozzarella almost too mild and tomatoes almost too sweet teeter dangerously close to bland, if not for the greens. Not only do flowers add eye-catching color, nasturtium petals picking up the orange of the tomato and purple and yellow pansies providing contrast, but they taste fragrantly floral against the mozarella. There are lots of fresh herbs, but I am still learning to identify herbs and spices by smell and taste – something like licorice, a little lavender, a bit of basil but much milder, maybe some mint. The miniature leafy greens are everything from paper-thin, as delicate as the flowers, to taut, crispy sharp and bitter. The floral greens could have stood on their own, undressed, naked, and still have had deliciously complex flavors.

I almost feel like I am cheating; that it it just too easy to put together something so simple, but sometimes, that’s the best thing an amateur cook can do. Don’t mess with nature, and let incredible ingredients shine on their own.

By sarah (see more of her posts). You can find more of sarah's writing at her own website The Delicious Life