Spinach Salad — The Greens We Carried Home from the Creek

Wild onion gathering day. Saturday, late March, cold morning that warmed into the fifties by noon. Forty-two families at the creek bottom east of Claremore — the most the site has seen in years, Hannah told me afterward. The elder from Tahlequah, a woman named Mrs. Runningwater who was in her seventies and had been gathering at this site for fifty years, walked the families through the meadow explaining which shoots were ready, which would need another two weeks, which plants to leave for next year's growth. She spoke in Cherokee and Hannah translated for the families who did not know the language yet, and the whole morning had the quality of a classroom that was also a piece of land that was also a ceremony.

Luna crouched next to the first wild onion plant she found and did not move for what Hannah tells me was four minutes. She was examining it. She looked at the shoot, the way it came out of the ground, the color, the texture of the leaves. Then she looked at Mrs. Runningwater. Then she looked back at the plant. Then she pulled it. Carefully. With both hands. And she held it up and showed it to me with a look of complete triumph. I said: "Usgalosdi." She said: "Oog-ah." She is two. She will get there.

Kai was in the meadow ahead of us most of the morning. He is five now and he knows what he is doing — he picked steadily and efficiently, stopping occasionally to show Luna a particularly large specimen, explaining things to her in the older-brother voice he has developed, which is approximately my voice at a slightly higher pitch. He knew the Cherokee word for wild onion. He had learned it at school. That is the world I am trying to build for him: a world where the school and the gathering and the kitchen are one connected thing. Today it was connected. That is enough for today.

We came home with wild onions in a paper bag and mud on our boots, and Luna was still holding the single onion she had pulled herself like it was something she had made. I wanted dinner to stay inside the same feeling the morning had — something with greens, something simple enough that the kids could help, something that kept the meadow on the table a little longer. I folded our wild onions right into this spinach salad in place of the red onion, and it tasted like the whole day had come full circle.

Spinach Salad

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 6 cups baby spinach, washed and dried
• 4 strips thick-cut bacon
• 3 large eggs, hard-boiled and sliced
• 1 cup cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced (or substitute fresh wild onions)
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Cook the bacon. In a skillet over medium heat, cook bacon strips until crisp, about 7–8 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Reserve 2 tablespoons of bacon drippings in the pan.
2. Make the warm dressing. Reduce heat to low. Whisk apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and honey into the reserved drippings. Season with salt and pepper and stir until combined, about 1 minute. Remove from heat.
3. Prepare the salad base. Place spinach in a large serving bowl. Add sliced mushrooms and onion (or wild onions) and toss gently to combine.
4. Add toppings. Crumble the cooked bacon over the salad. Arrange the sliced hard-boiled eggs on top. Sprinkle with Parmesan.
5. Dress and serve. Drizzle the warm dressing over the salad just before serving and toss lightly. Serve immediately while the dressing is still warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 13g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 7g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 390mg