THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY SALAD


Thanks to my stay at Colleen's, I've rediscovered my taste for the everyday salad. Colleen actually takes the time to cut up a variety of fresh vegetables to add to the lettuce. Sounds like a no-brainer to anyone making a salad, but over time I've devolved to eating lettuce and spinach only. The thought of having to take the cucumber or carrots or peppers or other bits out of the refrigerator, to then set up the cutting board, to then wield the knife, to have to put the remaining vegetables back in the fridge, at some point it all became too much. I thought the leafy greens were good enough. Only trouble is, without realizing it, my super-simplified salads eventually ran their course. A bunny rabbit wouldn't have been tempted.


So this week, not only did I buy vegetables intended for salad, but I cut them up and put them into  separate containers and only then did they go into the refrigerator. And this tactic worked. Making a more interesting salad took no extra effort.


Knowing me, though, I'll soon be bored with the usual cuke, carrots, etc. I'll need to mix it up. Tonight I added fresh strawberries to my salad--a combination I tasted for the first time last week at 10 Village Drive.


How to mix it up? Toasted nuts? Walnuts? Pecans? Avocado? The full color spectrum of peppers? Grated parmesan? -- a dairy food I haven't given up yet and might never. Different flavored vinegars? -- for instance, someone gifted me a Fig Vinegar, a few drops of which are transformative. Arugula?-- which I love. Non-bitter varieties of kale? Kim--dried cranberries? But no croutons, however, which can crack teeth made fragile by huge 60-year old silver fillings.


Tentative new committment:  getting my fresh greens at our local farmer's markets. We have 3 every week in Santa Monica. All the Santa Monica chefs buy their produce there.