quickie rice salad

    i just whipped this little salad up from what was available in the fridge only moments ago - one of my favourite cooking "methods", by the way. i love for people to tell me that there's nothing in the fridge to eat; it engages my primal sense of competition and throws a flame under my pot of creativity. bring me to any icebox and i shall show you what is possible. that is, after all, how this whole cooking career thingy got started anyway: just me, some herbs of questionable origin, a bottle of ketchup, one of mustard, a half bag of pasta and a scant cup of rice and the basic stock of home staples and tools............ you wouldn't believe the level of acceptibility where my palate was concerned, at one point in time. my food snobbery has come a LONG way.

1 cup cooked wild rice (a nice brown rice might also suffice)
8-10 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
2-3 tbsp of roughly chopped fresh oregano* (using dry herbs would be a tragedy)
3 large chunks of greek feta**, crumbled or diced, where 'er your muse leads
1 gentle glug of extra virgin olive oil (organic would be a beautiful thing)
pinch of fleur de sel
2 twists of freshly cracked black pepper

*replacement herb suggestions would be thyme, maybe basil - tarragon would be sublime. just ensure that they're fresh and on the twig! the reason i chose the oregano is because it has an earthy spice to it that blends brilliantly with the rice.

**meaning feta which is made from either sheep's or goat's milk, or both. there are many arguments about which is correct but for now we'll simply allow that particular detail to fall to the side. try to avoid the substantially inferior cow milk variety which appears to have supplanted the original in north american society. shameful. if you've never tried sheep/goat's feta, indulge in this tasty treat today.

now, after having finished the salad, i realized that olives would have been another great addition; something like a nice firm kalamata, or perhaps a nicoise variety. failing that, a spoonful of capers would also do. if you're in the habit of buying canned olives, well, i'd prefer if you just stopped reading this blog RFN and do something more productive with your time, like licking envelopes for a living.

all in good fun,

~chef