Yellow Peach, Fig & Goat's Cheese Salad

Honestly I have made so many variations of this salad that I've lost count. Dear Reader, please keep even the barest fragment of this recipe in your mind for a day when you need sustenance but you have very little patience or the day throws you a curve ball.

I made this salad while was having Terrible Tech Tuesday. It started with Mr NQN leaving me to deal with getting NBN (new internet) installed. I usually leave him to deal with the tech stuff because that's his field and his job for goodness sakes so I was wary when I had to deal with it.

The technician arrived 5 minutes after Mr NQN left for work (of course). "I need access to your roof," he said. "What? Why didn't you tell us you needed that?" I asked because honestly I've never ever considered how we even access our roof. "Yeah they never tell anyone that," he said shaking his head.

After a call to Horrible Henry the strata nazi we procured keys and he did his thing for about an hour and left. I tried to use the internet but it didn't work. For the next 4 hours I spoke to a variety of people at my service provider who asked me the same questions over and over.

At one stage I started to become a bit delirious and thought that it was some sort of elaborate plot to get me to hang up and never call again. At one stage I got so tired of repeating my dilemma that I simply said, "I can't take this anymore. I have to regroup and call you back."

Like the 4 stages of grief, there are 4 stages of dealing with a call centre:

1. Optimism - aka today I'm going to get this sorted!

2. Repetition - repeating your personal details to every single person on the phone

3. Impatience - you feel like you're about to lose your s!@#

4. KAREN - Lose your s!@# and ask to speak to a manager and get the issue resolved. This is also known as rewarding bad behaviour. I became a Karen and it turns out that turning into a Karen works and a resolution was scheduled for 24 hours. And thus KAREN was born.

Then a video that I had to edit that should have taken me 20-30 minutes TOPS wouldn't work. I spent an hour trying to no avail. It got to 6pm and I had spent a lot of time and even more of my already limited patience. So there are no process photos of this salad because I couldn't cope with anything extra.

Because life is ridiculous, I regrouped and tried it all the next day. The NBN worked and was faster than previous internet and my video just worked as if it hadn't had me at the end of a long tether where I was dancing at its will.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever have tech fail days where it seems as though you short circuit technology? Do you ever turn into a Karen? Do you think turning into a Karen works?

Yellow Peach, Fig & Goat's Cheese Salad

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Serves 2 as a side or 1 person for main

Preparation time: 7 minutes

Cooking time: 0 minutes

• 1 cup baby spinach leaves
• 1 yellow peach, thinly sliced
• 2 figs, quartered
• 25g/1oz. goat's cheese, crumbled
• 1 tablespoon finely sliced red onion
• 1 tablespoon parsley

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• Grind of salt and pepper

Step 1 - Lay the baby spinach on a plate, add the peach and figs on top and then the goat's cheese, onion and parsley. Make the salad dressing by whisking all ingredients together. Drizzle over the salad. Watch the inner Karen disappear.