THE DISH
Kale salad with oranges, radishes, avocados and honey-orange poppyseed dressing

THE INSPIRATION
Sea of Bees is Julie Ann Bee (pictured right), a disarming singer-songwriter from Sacramento, California, who completely blew my mind when I saw her in New York playing with The Loom last week (I was legitimately almost in tears). Sometime after she released her excellent first album Songs for the Ravens in 2009, she came out as a lesbian and began her first relationship with a woman. Thanks to that album’s success, constant touring and presumably just normal relationship things, that particular journey ended, and it makes up a lot of her new record Orangefarben, which was released on Team Love a few weeks ago. “Orangefarben” really just means orange-colored in German, and it’s the nickname Julie called her girlfriend, so the salad I made obviously has oranges in it (and carrots for more orange color); as well as honey in the dressing because of Sea of “Bees.” The kale and radishes are bitter, like the end of many relationships, and the dressing and oranges are quite sweet, to represent the sweetness in the beginning, and the satisfaction from how much we can learn from any relationship, especially a first one. And the avocados are there for Julie’s California roots. Unrelated (but not really because it also has to do with fully expressing yourself!), but, shoutout to my buddy Caroline, whose birthday shindig I took this to — she runs an awesome and inspiring personal style blog called Broadist, and if you’re a body-positive lady, you should probably check it out.

THE RECIPE
Kale, fruits and veggies, poppyseed dressing.

Orange-honey poppyseed dressing
Makes about 1 1/2 cups (halve it if you don’t want leftovers). Adapted from Lottie + Doof.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons poppyseeds
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 small onion, grated (about 1 1/2 tablespoons), with juice saved
Zest from one orange
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:
• Heat poppyseeds over medium-high heat for about two minutes, shaking them lightly in the pan. Add the sugar, honey, vinegar, onion and juice, orange zest, mustard powder, salt and pepper. Whisk together, then cook until the sugar dissolves and it starts to simmer.

• Remove dressing from the heat and transfer to a blender or food processor. Add both oils and pulse until the mixture is smooth. Let chill in the fridge before using.

The salad

Ingredients:
8 cups kale, chopped into bite size-ish pieces (I used a mix of Tuscan and curly)
2 oranges, peeled, pulled into segments and cut into bite-size pieces
1 avocado, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 radishes, sliced into thin circles
1-2 carrots, shredded (I used a peeler to get it into thin strips, then cut them)

Directions:
Combine kale and 3/4 cup dressing, then add the rest of the ingredients, toss and let sit for a few minutes before serving, so the dressing has time to soften up the kale a little bit.