Kale Salad with Pomegranate, Asian Pear, and Guanciale

It's not often that I manage to make something that Ann won't eat. But this Christmasy kale salad is beyond her limits. I ended up eating two huge kale salads for consecutive meals.

Kale Salad with Pomegranate, Asian Pear, and Guanciale

She had a brief flirtation with wanting to eat more leafy greens and asked me to make a kale salad with bacon. She has never liked kale in the past and so her request surprised me, but ever eager to please her, I made this salad of kale, pomegranate seeds, cucumber, Asian pear, guanciale (smoked hog jowl, the only bacon-like substance that we have in the house) with a balsamic vinaigrette.

In my experience, the only way to make raw kale edible in a salad is to literally drench it in a high-fat dressing and this dressing was anything but high in fat. By so drenching it, you lose any benefits of eating the kale. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, especially all the bits at the bottom of the salad bowl, but eating raw kale to me has something in common with rubbing salt in your wounds: you'll survive it, but it isn't a pleasant experience.

No more kale salads for us.