Salad Days

We've got sun until after 7 pm, balmy evenings with glorious sunsets, and it's almost summer.  I can see the corner where spring meets June 20th, and I start to pick up my pace.  My mind drifts to salads and my eyes perk up at the glorious produce headed my way.

I grew up on iceberg lettuce.  Tomato wedges.  Thousand Island or Russian?  Placed in a little bowl on the side of my plate.

I graduated, left home in a hurry, and my roommate introduced me to Salad 101.  Romaine.  Shredded cheese.  Canned black olives stuck on your fingers.  Thousand Island or Ranch?  I would eat leaning against the sink.  (Give me a break...I was 24!)

I met my French man and rose to the occasion:  mesclun with chevre, toasted pecans, freshly-snipped chives.  I made my own balsamic dressing.  We ate staring at each other across the table. 

My repetoire of lettuces expanded;  I discovered spinach, arugula, pea shoots, kale, and dandelion greens.  I added quinoa, soba noodles, wheat berries, lentils, and couscous.  I played with vinegars and oils, chutneys and mustards.  I'm still finding new options:  pumpkin seed oil, pomegranate molasses, orange flower water, tomato chutney, branson pickle...Such a simple formula:  one part acid, three parts oil, and never-ending combinations.  The perfect lettuce with the perfect dressing is still my favorite game.

Some of my favorite salads are the classics:  Salade Nicoise, the official salad from Nice, in the south of France.  Seven ingredients, simply made, arranged or tossed, creates a meal no man would complain about:  tomatoes, olives, hard-boiled eggs, green beans, boiled potatoes, lettuce, tuna.  Try this at 7 on a summer evening with a glass of rose and you'll stay at the table waiting for the cicadaes to sing you a lullaby.

My oldest daughter has seen it all, and in her 15-year old wisdom, chooses the Cesar every time:  sturdy romaine, garlicky, creamy dressing, anchovies!, crunchy, buttery croutons, slivers of pungent parmesan.  "Mexican food,"  I smirk, and she smiles.


Our summers hit hot patio and cooling grass al fresco.  White wine, rose, cold beer, pastis. Glorious salades composees, fresh ingredients on display.  We celebrate California with a Cobb salad:  spinach, blue cheese, tomatoes, avocados, bacon, and hard-boiled eggs.  We hail the sunset with the competing colors in my quinoa salad:  red peppers, white corn, cilantro, and pumpkin seeds peek through this grain's famous halo.  We scoop up emerald couscous, chunky with garbanzo beans and tiny cubes of tomato and cucumber.  We swirl soba coated with spicy peanut sauce, paint our plates clean with the last of the baguette, and settle in for sorbet, fruit salad, a splash of limonocello.

It's hot.  We hang out, not wanting to move, finding conversation between sips of cold and bites of cool, and think that this, really, is the Life.