It's Saturday, it's summer and the sun is shining in Zurich. Because I live alone these days, I hardly ever cook anything interesting (except for parties, when things get too hectic to make pictures). When I do cook, my most favorite thing to cook for just myself is a salad.

An advocate of minimalism in life, which unfortunately is possible mostly theoretically in our world of consumerism, I adore simple dishes that do not involve many ingredients. Some of those dishes come from my childhood in Russia, where minimalism was dictated by permanent deficit. Our memory carries on all our life impressions including food, and these simple things we experienced in early years are remembered as good.

Okroshka is a traditional cold Russian summer soup that doesn't need to be boiled. It is usually made on hot days when nobody wants to move, let alone cook something serious in the kitchen. This soup contains mostly raw vegetables, boiled eggs, and fermented drink kvas.

This recipe is another experiment with fiddlehead fern salad. The first one was a complete fiasco. This time it was dashed off intuitively, with Asian cuisine in mind.

Today the sun is shining again in Brooklyn. My local wine store put out a sign: "Weather, make up your damn mind! " Indeed, yesterday was windy, menacing and wet, and today Beatles' "Octopus's Garden" comes to mind: We would be warm below the storm In our little hideaway beneath the waves Perhaps due to this association, I suddenly craved some octopus amid a green paradise of green cauliflower, canned peas, pickles, celery, parsley, capers and a few other things.

Since herring makes just the first layer of the dish,  its taste is masked , or better put - mixed, with other ingredients, the result is a textured rich taste, teasing and pleasing for any palate. Notes: To simplify the process you can coarsely grate ingredients, except herring and onion. A rare person is satisfied with one helping of cloaked herring.

Most of the potato salads served in American Restaurants under the name " Russian Salad ", are simplified variations of this 20th century Russian classic. In Russia this salad is most commonly called Olivier Salad , and no self-respecting Russian feast can go without it. Where I come from, we call it simply the Winter Salad.

3 packed cups of good quality sauerkraut 4  medium (or 6 small) beets, boiled in skins, peeled, cut in 1/2" cubes 2 medium carrots, boiled in skins, peeled, also cut in 1/2" cubes 3 medium pickled cucumbers, diced 2/3 green apple, peeled, and cut in 1/2" cubes 1/4 big red onion, finely diced 2 medium potatoes, boiled in skins, peeled, and cut  in 1/2" cubes 4-5 tbsp sunflower oil (better not refined) Salt to taste Method: Fold cubed beets in 3 tbsps oil and set aside. This will prevent beets to bleed a lot in your salad.   If sauerkraut looks too coarsely cut, shred it a little more with a sharp knife to make finer pieces.

Out of the Russian gastronomic stereotypes (apart from cabbage, which is also German, and vodka, which is really quite popular around the globe) beets is one of the most persistent. And yes, we are truly beet-eaters. Beets are a proud ingredient of many traditional Russian dishes.

Most people who've paid a few visits to Italian restaurants know caprese, a traditional Italian salad composed of just 5 ingredients: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It is lovely, satisfying, complete, but as a history of restaurant-going has proved, caprese is not the surest item on the menu. It leaves nothing to be desired, when the fresh mozzarella is tender and high-quality, preferably mozzarella di bufala, tomatoes are vine-ripened, and balsamic vinegar is of the authentic artisanal kind.

Herring is not only Russian traditional food, it is also a favourite in many European countries, Scandinavians being the biggest consumers of it.  What seems disgusting might serve you good, one just needs to know how to use it in a proper way. Tomato herring salad was first introduced to me by my aunt Shura long time ago, when I was a child, making my first steps in the kitchen.

), and the ugly little peppers (also organic) which did turn out tasting ok. Well, I should probably at least do a salad, thought I, a cucumber salad. What goes well with cucumbers?

Good enough, thought I. But, as I was slicing daikon for the bland salad I had in mind, my eye fell on a curry packet in my spice cabinet. A chain reaction ensued, producing this light, tasty salad,  reminding one of a steamy summer afternoon somewhere in Malaysia.

In this recipe, the watercress complements nicely the mildness of avocado and zucchini.  This salad is creamy and delicious, gentle to the palate and satisfying.  Given Gary's unexplained loathing of both zucchini and avocado, it is not surprising I have not discovered this combination earlier, as I tend to avoid both ingredients (unless carefully disguised).

This favourite of ours was inspired by Asian salads that became popular in Russia in the 80-s.  Korean salad, as we called it, was made mostly of carrots with the addition of garlic, red and black pepper, salt, white vinegar (there was nothing else in stores), and sunflower oil (also the only option we had at that time). Daikon, Japanese radish (or just Asian radish, since it originates in continental Asia) adds festiveness and visual interest to this year-round dish.

Perhaps, I was just trying to prevent those inevitable weekday evenings, when you come home entirely too late to cook, and entirely too tired not to fall back on some less healthy option. So I cooked... stuffed peppers, cabbage salad, bean soup and dried apricot cake.

Cooking can be just about the food, or it can be a therapy: a release from a grueling day at work, or from the sadness that settles on you suddenly in a blanket of volcanic ash. And therapy it was for me yesterday night, when I composed this overture of a salad: sweet, refreshing, and juicy, with just a slight overtone of crunch. It is not difficult to prepare and can serve as a light dinner or lunch.

Being precisely in this predicament last night, I put together this very light and zesty salad that would go best with meat. Of course, the contents of the fridge will vary from home to home, but the important thing is to keep an open mind when coming up with a recipe. This was the first time I used kiwi in a salad, and an unripe one at that.

One hot summer day I felt lazy to peel, slice, and mix. That's how this minimalistic tomato salad was born. "Is that all?