Cook This: 3 recipes from Salad for Days, including a baked sweet potato, 'made salady'
Our cookbook of the week is Salad for Days by Alice Zaslavsky, an award-winning Australian author and broadcaster.
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Jump to the recipes: barbecued adjapsandal with adjika yogurt dressing, yampers (camper's jacket yams), and Swiss chard and broccoli tumble with herby avocado dressing.
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Alice Zaslavsky 's joyful way with vegetables can't help but draw you in. Her recipes strike a rare balance — as easygoing and enticing as they are educational, which isn't surprising, given Zaslavsky's background. The award-winning Australian author and broadcaster used to be a middle-school teacher.
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In her fourth cookbook, Salad for Days (Murdoch Books), Zaslavsky takes her veg-loving ways to a natural place. Quoting 1990s-era Homer Simpson, she acknowledges that salads haven't always gotten the respect they deserve. But times have changed. 'As a global force of eaters, I think we're ready for more salads.'
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Zaslavsky was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and emigrated to Australia with her family in 1990. In some Western cuisines, salads may be an afterthought relegated to side status, but in Georgia, they're a mainstay. 'We don't call them salads, necessarily. Each dish has its own name and purpose. Some of them are smaller, some of them are bigger, and they all add up to this supra (feast) and this incredible kind of kaleidoscope.'
She extends this sense of bounty to Salad for Days, a year-round guide to filling your plate with vegetables.
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With all she does, whether as the host of A Bite To Eat With Alice, a nightly cooking show on ABC, or in her cookbooks, Zaslavsky tries to evoke joy. 'That's my word.' In the nearly 500-page In Praise of Veg (2022) — her 'vegetable bible,' which so far has been translated into six languages in 14 countries — it's wrapped up in vivid colour. Her third book, Better Cooking (2024), centred on skills to build kitchen confidence while having fun. With Salad for Days, 'I tried to contain the joy in a way that made it feel very accessible to anyone.'
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The result is curated and intentional, with space for cooks to find themselves in. 'We're so bombarded with information and imagery, and more, more, more. This is my pared-back, less-is-more book.'
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Reflecting this streamlined approach, there are just two chapters: Warmer Days and Cooler Days. Zaslavsky bookends the 80 recipes with shortcuts to finding one that suits your cravings or the contents of your crisper. A dressings index divides them by category, such as spicy and funky or zippy and zesty. And, since salad-making often starts with what you already have, the book concludes with a recipe breakdown by vegetable.
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'I'm putting myself in the mind of a modern cook. We've got aspirations, but we've also got deadlines, limited bandwidth and multiple tabs open, and I want this book to feel like you can take a breath. I've got you. Whether you feel like telling me what the weather's doing, what you've got, or if you want something zippy or creamy, I'm meeting you where you are and with what you need. And I think it all comes back to that idea that I'm feeling useful and adding value.'
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