Did I never get around to telling you about this beet salad that I made last year? With smokey tea-pickled beets and kumquats and blue cheese and all things springtime?
My apologies for the gap, then!
I made this salad for a meeting of our Lab Ladies' Tea series, previously featured here, here, and here. I always delight in bringing a non-sweet item to a potluck, and also, the fellow Lab Ladies are such wonderful bakers--there's always for sure going to be some amazing goods already on the table. This time around, we had a rough "Slavic" theme, for a special guest that we invited to tea to regale us with stories of fieldwork in remote parts of Russia. Of course, "theme" is a very loose suggestion here, but hence my inspiration of beets pickled in lapsang souchong tea. Also, I learned that move from Annelies Zijderveld's tea book, and the smokeyness worked beautifully against the sweet/sour vinegar and crispness of the fresh beets.
This time around, I asked the other Lab Ladies to share their recipes as well, so below the fold are their recipes to some absolutely wonderful baked goods: a lemony-brandy bundt cake from Clara, an orange nut chocolate babka that Sarah made, jam-filled cookies by Emily, and savory kale, feta, and green chili khachapuri from Andréa. We had a huge picnic on a sunny balcony in the Berkeley hills overlooking a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and everyone got pleasantly sun-red from the weather and cheek-red from the smiling and tea. ♥ these girls. Go, women in science!
Read on for recipes...
