Farro & Kale Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing
I thought my time of dealing with cliques would end when I walked across the stage at my high school graduation. But here I am as an adult, living in a neighborhood full of cliques. You see, we live in what has been described as a hip, vibrant suburb of Detroit.
There’s lots of young families and couples, our downtown is absolutely packed with bars and restaurants (there’s an official pub crawl each summer), and the town is regularly chosen as the most LGBT friendly in Michigan.
So all signs point to the fact that we would move here, and instantly fall into a big group of interesting neighborhood friends who we would have backyard barbecues and progressive dinners with.
Those things happen on our street, they just don’t include us. You see, we are NOT part of any neighborhood cliques. I’m pretty sure we’re the only young married couple without kids on our block, and none of the cliques are interested in having us.
There’s a huge population of families with young kids, but without a tiny human of our own, we’re not invited to their progressive dinners.
There’s what I call the “frat boy contingent” of young single guys who host backyard keg parties. We’re *sort of* invited to those, in a throw away “well, if you want to come…” type of invitation.
There’s a small group of young dating couples who have pool parties, but as we are married, we’re somehow not welcome over there, either. As though being married makes us vastly different from those still dating (less fun?).
There’s an old lady dog walking club, which I’m about 30 years too young (and my dog 5 shades too rambunctious) to join. There’s an older guy horseshoe playing association, which Jeff is about 20 years too young to join.
Luckily, we have plenty of friends who don’t live in our neighborhood, so it’s not like we’re shut-ins sitting at home watching Netflix every night. But I’d be lying to say I’m not a little disappointed that our neighborhood turned out to be so lame for us.
If I WAS invited to any backyard gatherings or dinner parties by my neighbors, I would bring something like this Farro & Kale Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing.
This salad starts with cooked farro (or any cooked grain or rice you happen to have on hand), and is tossed with a homemade honey-mustard dressing, chopped pear (buy an extra pear and make a prosciutto sandwich too!), kale, sliced almonds and Salemville Amish Gorgonzola Cheese Crumbles. It’s a crowd pleaser. If I had a neighborhood crowd to please, right?
Farro & Kale Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing
Ingredients
For the Honey-Mustard Dressing:
For the Farro & Kale Salad:
Instructions
Disclaimer: This post is part of a relationship I have with Saputo Specialty Cheese for recipe development. Posts like this help me pay for the costs associated with this blog (groceries…lots of groceries), and help support me as I pursue a career in recipe development and food photography. All opinions are 100% my own.
Lori, I feel for you with your neighborhood. Â I’ve been living in mine for 6 years and know the next door neighbors on one side, and the lady across the street. Â Sort of. Â Our neighborhood does not seem to be one where people would even think about having neighborhood get-togethers. Â With the situation you describe, it reminds me of people who have lost their spouse who are no longer welcome with couples. Â It’s really sad that you have to be a clone to be part of what’s happening.
I like this recipe. Â I’ll have to try farro.
Funny, I’ve also been living here 6 years. I pretty much realized how it was going to be right off the bat. Nobody really came over and welcomed us or anything like that. But how are you supposed to know these things BEFORE you buy a house and move in? There’s only so much research you can do.Â
Our neighborhood does have an annual block party. Jeff and I attend every year that we’re able to, but nothing much comes out of that. For the most part, the cliques stick together during the party – watching their kids in the bounce house, playing horseshoes, etc. We awkwardly try to integrate and strike up conversations, but it’s usually just met with “WHAT house do you live in?” Most of the time, we just go home even more discouraged! Every time a house goes up for sale on our block, I have high hopes that a nice young couple will move in. Nothing so far, but I’m crossing my fingers!
In my current neighborhood (since I haven’t fully moved yet 😉 ), everyone is stretched out. I have to walk about 5 minutes to get to my neighbors. Everyone in this town is married and older. I swear I’m the only single young girl here. Even at work, everyone is married and/or with kids. People cannot grasp little ol’ single me living alone. They honestly think I just sit there all night and watch tv. Have they not seen my blog?! 🙂 Anyway, if you were in my neighborhood, you would totally be invited over and you can bring this salad 😀
Yeah, I think for the most part, it just seems hard for people to understand that those in different situations are really the same as they are! I mean, just because I’m married doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to hang out with other couples who AREN’T married, or single people, or even people with kids! Oh well. I’ll just sit at home and eat my farro salad alone. haha.
Looks filling with some crunch! Yum!
Julie
Gourmet Getaways
Definitely both of those things. Thanks Julie!
This sounds fab!! Farro is sooooo hot right now! Do you look on google trends to figure out recipes?
I don’t, but now I’m going to go look that up! I did a post for Bob’s Red Mill last fall, and they sent me two big bags of farro. I’ve just been working my way through them ever since!
This recipe combines so many of my favorite ingredients! Â Kale, mustard, gorgonzola, almonds, oh my! Â Seems like this would also hold up well to take for lunch. Â
Definitely, Ethel! I actually ate leftovers for 2 or 3 days, and it held up just fine 🙂