recipeworld

I used to really, really hate the combination of sweet and salty. Sweet should be dessert, salty should be in the meal. Salt caramel, duck à l’orange, sweet peanut butter with Thai noodles… all of these these combinations that I now love were completely off limits.

It took a pretty extraordinary cheese plate to change my mind. The cheese course at Napa restaurant Tra Vigne features several delicious cheeses along with whole honeycomb and blueberry preserves. Something about the presentation, the fact that I had just tried lentils for the first time in my life and loved them, and the fact that the whole cheese plate came on a lovely marble slab and just looked so appealing made me venture to try it: a little bit of goat’s cheese with some of the fresh honeycomb on walnut bread… and I was hooked.

Now I love to mix sweet and salty. Some of my favorite salads venture into this realm, combining honey and warm goat’s cheese, like I did that first day, or ham with dried fruit. I love this salad, which combines sweet figs and honey in the dressing with salty prosciutto and gorgonzola cheese.

Fig, Gorgonzola and Prosciutto Salad

Assemble the salad ingredients on a plate. Put all of the dressing ingredients in a jar (except the olive oil) and shake to combine. Whisking with a fork, stir the dressing while pouring the olive oil in in a thin stream. Dress the salad and serve immediately.