WINTER KALE SALAD WITH BLACK PEPPER RED WINE VINAIGRETTE.

For four days I did nothing but sleep and swim and sun and sit and eat and breathe and laugh and dance and cuddle and hold hands and wear high heels and wear nothing at all and swim and eat and sleep again. This is every New Years in Palm Springs. It started in 2011, in a sweet midcentury modern house with orange shag carpet and bold geometric design, and two of my closest friends from college and their significant others. The group has expanded and morphed over the years—including two years I was absent—but New Years in the Desert continues to be fuel for all good things to come in the year ahead.
I don’t consider myself a desert person. I find the stark landscape grating, the dryness aggravating, the heat and cold penetrating in a way that feels harsh rather than enlivening. My tropical Maui roots bristle at the lack of humidity and lush green life.

And yet, each year, something in the desert polishes and refines and clears everything that came before—old habits, tired ways of thinking, the exhausting routine of selfhood that wears itself thin at the end of each year. Something in the minimalism, the flat horizons, the searing colors. Something hits the reset button.

I come away wholly renewed.

And then there’s the food. These few days in Palm Springs also prove to be one of the few times of year when I get to take a break from the kitchen.

My friend Micah takes the helm as kitchen captain, and the rest of us are left giggling in wonderment as he produces ginger soy roasted salmons, lavender vinaigretted little gem salads, bacon fat and garlic beet greens, and so much more. I might make brunch (this year was jalapeño cheddar waffle rancheros), throw together some midnight cookies on NYE (with a side of this insane kitchen choreo), and pile a few dishes into the washer, but for the most part I simply get to enjoy the wonders of someone else cooking for me. It’s the sweetest gift.

Returning to my own (much smaller, unmanned) kitchen, I want the simplest, most nourishing, easiest options. Enter: This year’s Winter Kale Salad.

In the wake of it all, in these precious first days of the new year, what I want is whole foods, plant proteins, deep minerals, bright flavors, rich texture, and an intoxication of health. I want a salad that feels like a meal.

This chopped kale salad with crispy leeks, toasty hazelnuts, pomegranate arils, shaved apple and feta cheese is laced with a bitey black pepper red wine vinaigrette. A little something to ward off the hangovers and kickstart your year on a note of salty-sweet-spicy acidity.

Get the recipe on this week’s Intuitive Eating with Kale & Caramel.