Savory Marinated Mushroom Salad

Summer continues. The garden produces. The book progresses — seven chapters now, the Marvin chapter drafted but not finished, because the chapter about a man who is still alive and still declining is a chapter that cannot end, that resists the closing, that must remain open the way Marvin's condition is open, ongoing, unresolved, the eternal present tense of a disease that does not conclude but continues, and the chapter must match the disease, must be ongoing, must refuse resolution, because the resolution is the thing I cannot write because it has not happened and I do not want it to happen, and the not-wanting is the love, and the love is the chapter, and the chapter is unfinished, and the unfinished is the truth.

The grandchildren are in full summer mode — Ethan reading Percy Jackson, Sophie writing stories (she has started writing stories, and the stories are about a girl who lives in a kitchen and has magical cooking powers, and I am not the model for this character, Sophie insists, which I accept with the skepticism of a woman who has been the model for every cooking character in every story written in this house for forty years). Noah is five and starting kindergarten in the fall. Hannah is three and in the spoon phase (see week 383). The children are growing. The chain is being built. The building is the summer. The summer is the chain.

I made a gazpacho. The summer soup. Carmen's recipe. Cold, bright, alive. The soup of a woman who is busy and alive and producing — producing food, producing words, producing visits, producing love. The production is the life. The gazpacho is the proof.

The gazpacho was Carmen’s recipe — cold, herbed, built to last in the refrigerator through a long day of writing and grandchildren — and this savory marinated mushroom salad is its spirit in a bowl: something you make ahead, let sit, and return to, the flavors deepening with time the way a chapter does, the way love does, the way everything worth keeping does. You make it, you let it go, and it becomes more itself the longer it rests — which felt, this particular summer, exactly right.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min (plus 2 hours chilling) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb fresh button mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 small red bell pepper, finely diced

Instructions

Make the marinade. In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, Dijon mustard, sugar, salt, black pepper, and oregano until fully combined and emulsified.
Combine the vegetables. Add the quartered mushrooms, diced red bell pepper, and sliced green onions to the bowl. Toss well to coat everything evenly in the marinade.
Chill and marinate. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, stirring once or twice as the mushrooms release their liquid and absorb the marinade. The salad can be made up to 24 hours ahead — it only improves with time.
Finish and serve. Just before serving, stir in the fresh parsley and taste for seasoning, adding more salt, pepper, or a splash of vinegar as needed. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Savory Marinated Mushroom Salad — The Soup of a Woman Who Is Busy and Alive