Salad Days

Seek simplicity, and trust it

I’m back from France and crushing hard on all the greenery that’s popping up in and outside the garden. Soon enough the plenitude becomes its own burden, and I start taking for granted that there’s more food coming out of the ground than I can possibly eat. That’s when preservation begins, and that field of course has its own newsletter, because it’s so vast and I’m not one to half-vast anything involving my own food supply.

In the meantime, though, I love the focus that this time of year requires. There’s already a lot of food outside, but you have to look carefully and snip judiciously. The salad in the photo represents most (not all) of the wild and domestic leaves currently available around my house, and I must say it kicked the asses of all the salads I had in France without even trying.

I’ve already broken down the anatomy of a vinaigrette for you, and that’s required reading for understanding one of the easiest and most versatile sauce/condiments available. But the dressing, however splendid, was not the reason why this salad absolutely spanked the competition. Like the name implies, dressing is an exterior layer, added to enhance what’s underneath. The key to a life-changing salad is both deeper and simpler than what you choose to toss it in.