Kale Salad, the second

There is a palate of the understanding, as well as of the senses. The taste is taken with good relishes, the sight with fair objects, the hearing with delicate sounds, the smelling with pure scents, the feeling with soft and plump bodies, but the understanding with all these, for all which you must begin at the kitchen. There the art of poetry was learned and found out, or nowhere, and the same day with the art of cookery. 

--the Cook to the Poet, in Neptune's Triumph by Ben Jonson

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Kale salads have been a standby this summer, when I am often too busy/hot to cook much. This is an easy thing to keep around for a few days in the fridge and just munch on when I remember that all I've been eating is tater tots on campus or something. I would never order a kale salad at a restaurant--this, perhaps, is the curse of the vegan, to think 'Why would I order another fucking salad when I don't have to? I'll save that for Applebee's with the fam.' And also, kale can taste real, um, healthy, in a bad way. But if you balance out steamed kale with richer things, like edamame, avocado, or oil, it's actually fantastic.

Another kale salad, this time with avocado and radishes 

(as well as, again, edamame and sesame-lime vinaigrette)