It’s 7 in the morning on a Sunday as I write this. The radiators are steaming like a kettle and I can hear crows ca-cawing, cawing, cawing outside. The crows always remind me of the cold months in Massachusetts, where I grew up and where they would circle the sky and hop through the brown grass in our yard with their flint eyes, observing and noting everything.

But I’m not in Massachusetts – I’m in Baltimore where the sky is a matte wash of blue steel with no edges. This is a seaside town hugging the Chesapeake Bay, and the air is always a little colder, a little damper, a little saltier because of it. O and I have been living here for exactly a year now, which is not nearly enough time to get to know a place but is enough time to determine if it feels right. My logical brain will calculate the city’s amenities, its grocery stores, restaurants, galleries, book stores and public transit. It will weigh its possibilities for affordable real estate and career growth. It will observe its muggy summers and raw winters and measure them up against my summers and winters in Boston, in Los Angeles, in Washington and in every other city I’ve lived in. And then, once I’ve taken stock of all of these things, my heart, my feet, my eyes will set aside these calculations, look around, and say stronger and louder than logical reasoning, “Yes. This is right. And you know it.”

Committing to a city is like being in a relationship with another person. There is the infatuation, the honeymoon, the rituals of reality, the giving and receiving. I’ve never committed to a city before and thought to myself that this could be it, The One. Baltimore has changed that. While I can’t know for sure if this will be the place where we live for the next twenty or more years of our lives, hunker in and claim this place as our own, it excites and scares me at once to admit to myself that I hope that it’s so.

And now, for a warm winter salad to nourish and detoxify the body and keep the digestive fire burning during the coldest months of the year.

This beet and barley salad is a creamy, comforting meal when the weight of meat stews, squash gratins, and and cream-laden casseroles hits its wintertime breaking point. While barley is often used in soups and stews and not much else, it is a delicious and versatile grain in its own right. Barley is the oldest known domesticated grain, having been cultivated for human and animal consumption for over 10,000 years. The most common form of barley is pearled barley, in which the outer bran layer has been removed, and is easiest to find. Hulled barley, in which only the outer hull has been removed, is the true whole-grain form; if you can find it, it can be easily substituted in this recipe. Barley is paired here with sweet roasted beets, Omega-3 packed walnuts, feta and a fresh bite from the cilantro.

warm roasted beet and barley salad in a maple mustard dressing

For the Salad:

2 medium beets, stem still attached, scrubbed well
1 cup pearl barley
3 cups water
1 Tablespoon sea salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
¾ cup crumbled feta
1 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Wrap the beets in foil, leaving a small opening at the top for steam to escape. Roast in the oven for 40-60 minutes or more until a paring knife can be inserted cleanly and easily into a beet. Remove beets from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle. Using your fingers or a paper towel, scrub the skins off the beets, slice off the step, and slice the beets into ½-inch cubes, coins, or half-moons, whatever you prefer. Set aside.

While the beets are roasting, cook the barley. Bring the 3 cups of water and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the barley, cover the pot, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the water is absorbed and the barley is tender and chewy, about 45 minutes.

To serve, toss the cooked barley in 3 Tablespoons of dressing (recipe follows), the chopped cilantro, crumbled feta and walnuts. Plate the salad and finish with ¼ cup of beets per plate. Finish with a scattering of feta and additional dressing to taste. Serve warm.

For the Dressing:

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons mustard
1 ½ Tablespoons maple syrup
1 ½ Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Whisk all ingredients together, and adjust flavors to taste. Store remaining dressing in the refrigerator.