For the Love of Salad.

        A strange thing happened to me about two years ago. I started to love salad. I don't mean I started to eat salad, or that I started to think salad was good for me. That I was staring down the barrel at thirty and decided salad was the answer to my impending oldness.  No, quite the opposite. One day I sat down to eat a lovely salad of fresh crunchy greens, boneless buffalo wings (I know, so nutritional) and good old Wishbone Blue Cheese salad dressing and the oddest thing happened. I enjoyed the greens more than the chicken. That was it, sitting there in my living room, on a break from reading, reading, reading for class I looked at those crunchy greens and said "Where have you been my entire life?"


 Now I am hooked. I eat salad with just about every meal.  I used to have trouble with salads as the lettuce would always spoil in the fridge - a salad spinner (and consuming the lettuce in a more timely fashion) fixed that. I can not emphasize to you how helpful a salad spinner is. I understand your skepticism, it is the stuff of late-night infomercials and 1950s Tupperware parties, but it works!  My husband and our friends find it hilarious and fascinating that I eat a dessert salad. About 40 minutes after dinner I pull the salad bowl out for one more go.


Now the key to a really good salad is the lettuce, it has to be crunchy and flavorfull.  None of that iceberg stuff - it's crunchy but it has no flavor. A good bib or butter lettuce combined with some Roman for crunch - yum! And lambs lettuce - they sell it at Trader Joe's as "Mache" to-die-for!  Everything else is mood music really, it's all about the lettuce.  I like a good classic: tomatoes, shredded carrots, maybe some snap peas or radishes. Or dress it up with some avocado (don't give me that, it's the good kind of fat).  Maybe some orange segments to go with the Avocado  Fruit is wonderful in salads. Fresh strawberries, blackberries or raspberries - though be careful what you pair them with. Right now I am really loving cucumber in my salads. All that fresh crispy spring flavor.

Of Course you also have to consider the dressing.  The dressing is very important. If you are one of those people that can eat a salad dry - bless you - but I am not one of those people.  Even if it is just a little olive oil and lemon juice/zest I need a little something on there to make it salad.  I love a good vinegrette, or goddess dressing.  Goddess dressing is the best because you get the creaminess of a blue cheese without the attendant calories of a dressing that actually uses cream or cheese. Goddess dressing uses sesame seed paste and somehow that creates the most wonderful nutty creaminess.

Oh my! I have made myself hungry - I'll have to pull out the spinner and have at!