Fresh from the greenhouses, in a Michigan February
As a city-living vegetarian, I really considered salads to be somewhat overrated. Maybe I took all those “how can you subsist on rabbit food” comments to heart, but I mostly found salads disappointing after all the preparation that went into making them. I ate them, sure; still, my heart was not in it.
Nowadays, though? Now I love the stuff. I love picking it, I love washing it, I love preparing it…I love my Sunday-afternoon salad-dressing sessions. Maybe it’s a zen thing, this time that it takes to pick/wash/dry, with some chopping thrown in.
Green onions, Par-Cel cuttting celery, Flakee carrots, purple-top turnip, and purple kohlrabi
I really love the noise of the knife hitting the cutting board: thock thock thock.
Maybe I’ve just got a mild case of Stockholm syndrome: loving one’s oppressors. Wait: who’s holding whom hostage: do I own my greenhouses or do they own me?
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
fast grow the weeds 
If you do, I think I am in the same boat 🙂 the process of preparing veg, salads… chopping, combining, the steps just flow and give real satisfaction somehow… Plus, it lends itself very well to nibbles on those carrots, lol. Half of the salad ends up in my mouth before the bowl!
LOL, stockholm syndrome! It totally fits. While we may think we own our lands and structures, once they are there and the garden is in, they really do own us.
We fret over them, we speak to them when we see a boo boo, we tend them and then…well…we eat them!
So perhaps it is the best kind of stockholm syndrome. The one where the hostage gets the last word…or meal.
I’m with you on the home salads, but I never order a salad in a restaurant. My salads at home are filled with vegetables– no lettuce. And they are beautiful. Restaurant salads are lettuce topped with a black olive. Okay, maybe they aren’t all like that- but they always contain lettuce, which is not my friend.
and in a way it’s fast food… perfect for lunch when you run into the house hungry. You don’t have to think about it, just some greens, some non greens, mix some dressing, a good slice of bread… and voila. Lunch’s ready.
Ok. it’s making me hungry, I better go pick some mache and arugula for lunch.
What’s nice is when you realize you are craving salad. Ahh.
PS: I gave Cranky this advice on chopping. “You aren’t trying to do the fastest job you can, you are trying to make the nicest thing for your mouth.” He totally got it.
MC, hah! I do a fair amount of snacking too. Gotta check to make sure everything TASTES okay, you know?
Christy I especially feel this way when mid-July comes along and everything including the weeds is growing like crazy. Ack! Overwhelming!! But yes there’s a tasty payoff, isn’t there?
Pamela is ALL lettuce not your friend? Just curious because it’s such a diverse field. Now I can certainly see cabbage not being one’s friend, hwah! Yeah I find it hard to order salads out too except I am a bit of a sucker for a warm spinach salad, and I always get ideas when I am out eating salad prepared by others. There is a certain kind of tyranny in being the solo gardener AND chef.
I swear Sylvie mache doesn’t do that well for me; it’s a really hit-or-miss germinator. I wish I had beds of the winterproof stuff it’s simply somehow not terribly happy here. HOWEVER it does self-sow nicely. (Maybe that’s the ticket: I should never weed again. Hmm!) Is your arugula going crazy now that there’s more light outside?
Now if I had some citrus to throw on my salads…mmm…CC. Perfect advice for a get-it-over-with chopper though. Frankly it’s the noise as much as the pretty result sometime… Have you marmaladed yet? Or chutneyed? You should!