Peanut & toasted sesame dressing, design and more awards

Sunday was the last day of the Salone del Mobile, the international design fair, which is a very interesting event indeed, but overcrowded and not a place to go with children and strollers. The atmosphere is totally different at the Fuori Salone, events and locations open to the public all over the town, many of which in the more artsy and emerging areas of the city.

(The pictures were all taken with my cell phone).

  

In good weather, it is a great way to take a stroll and let the kids run around and wonder at all the colorful and bizzarre creations while parents get an idea of the creative juices flowing outside nurseries and a whiff of their distant life of exhibits, cocktails and designer objects.

It is exciting to discover yet another facet of the place you live, new buildings (finally!) being constructed in abandoned industrial areas and sites of a city that, despite being one of the design capitals of the world, has shown little urbanistic innovation in the past decades. As always, food was present too, in one way or the other.

And since it is spring and we are talking of ideas and creations from all over the world, here is a very simple yet fabulous idea I got from Design, Wine & Dine. It is a peanut sesame dressing you can use on salads or any other kind of vegetable and it is delicious. I think I would like it on just about anything, even my bare fingers.

Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter (mine was not sweetened)

Toast the sesame seeds (the original recipe calls for black ones, but I didn't have any), grate the ginger, mince the garlic and then whisk all the ingredients together until the peanut butter is mixed in well. The original recipe also calls for dark sesame oil (I used light) and some chili flakes. If I wasn't making dinner for the kids too, I definitely would have added some heat. I stir fried some asparagus and poured some of this on top.

I also wanted to thank an An Italian cooking in the Midwest for honoring me with this award. I just recently awarded several bloggers I love with this award, but I would like to pass the award on to another blog, My Little Expat Kitchen that I accidentally didn't include last time. Check her out!