Shirazi Salad — The Cold, Crisp Thing I Needed After a Long Week in the Heat

Summer hit Milwaukee like a freight train. Ninety degrees on Tuesday. Ninety-three on Wednesday. The lake was blue for the first time since October, and every restaurant on Kinnickinnic put tables outside, and Bay View suddenly looked like a beach town if you squinted hard enough and ignored the power lines. I've been at the brewery every day this week — long shifts, brewing and packaging, because summer is peak season and Lakefront is pushing product. Helen's Wheat is in the regular rotation now, which means I'm brewing larger batches. Marcus has me making ten-barrel batches instead of the five-gallon test. Scaling up a recipe is harder than it sounds — the ratios change, the timing changes, the margin for error shrinks. But the beer is holding up. Consistent. Reliably good. Marcus said I've "figured out my beer," which I think means I've found a recipe I can reproduce every time without variations. That's the goal in professional brewing. Repeatability. Making the same beer every time so the customer knows what they're getting. But here's the thing: I don't want to only make the same beer every time. I want to experiment. I want to try new things. I pitched Marcus an idea on Friday — a Polish-inspired dark lager, a Baltic porter with smoked malt and dried cherries, something that nods to the old country but with a Wisconsin twist. He said, "Write it up." I'm going to spend the weekend on it. At home, the heat drove me to cold food. I made Babcia's cold cucumber soup — mizeria — which is really just cucumbers in sour cream with dill, but served cold it's the most refreshing thing on earth. I also made my own version of a cold Polish beet soup — lighter than the chłodnik I made in April, more like a gazpacho but with beets and kefir. Pink, cold, tangy, bizarre. I loved it. Instagram was split — half the comments said it looked amazing, half said it looked like Pepto-Bismol. Both are correct. Dad is doing better. I can tell because he's stopped driving past Babcia's old house. Mom told me — she didn't say "he stopped" because that would mean admitting he'd been doing it, and Kowalski women protect Kowalski men from their own emotions. But I noticed. He came over for brats on Saturday and he was lighter. Laughing. Telling stories about his crew at work. He's going to be okay. We're all going to be okay. Also: the Brewers are 41-27 and Yelich is batting .289 and I swear to God if this team breaks my heart in September I will never forgive baseball.

The mizeria I made this week got me thinking about how many cultures have figured out the same thing: when it’s brutally hot, the answer is cold cucumbers, acid, and herbs. Shirazi Salad is the Persian version of that instinct — cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, lemon, and fresh mint, nothing cooked, nothing complicated. After five days of ten-barrel brew shifts and a kitchen that already felt like a mash tun, I wasn’t turning on the stove for anything. This salad was on the table in ten minutes, it was cold from the fridge, and it tasted like exactly the right idea.

Shirazi Salad

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 3 Persian cucumbers (or 1 large English cucumber), finely diced
• 2 medium Roma tomatoes, finely diced
• 1/2 small red onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Optional: 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano or sumac for garnish

Instructions

1. Dice the vegetables. Cut cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onion into small, uniform pieces — roughly 1/4-inch dice. Uniform cuts help the flavors distribute evenly and give every bite a balanced mix.
2. Combine. Add diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onion to a medium bowl. Toss in the chopped mint and parsley.
3. Dress. Drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Toss gently to coat everything.
4. Taste and adjust. Try a bite — add more lemon if you want it brighter, more salt if it tastes flat. The balance between acid and salt is everything here.
5. Chill and serve. For best results, refrigerate for 10–15 minutes before serving so the flavors meld. Serve cold, garnished with a pinch of sumac or extra fresh mint if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 85 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 300mg