A few words about salad

Trying to grate baby carrots on a micro planer is futile, and trying to shred them with a vegetable peeler isn't much better.  I made these helpful discoveries when I was going through the arduous task of creating a salad for lunch today.  I'll tell you: if I had enough money to meet all my needs and had plenty left over for my wants, I'd hire a personal salad chef.  Most people I've spoken with agree that salads taste way better when someone else makes them. 


But since I don't have funds to hire a personal salad chef, and since my friends and family seemingly have better things to do than prepare veggies for me, the task is mine, all mine.


*sigh*


As a child, my idea of a salad was a handful of torn up ice berg lettuce swimming in a pool of syrupy Italian dressing.  Not any more.  I've had enough grown-up salads (made by Not Me) that I want something more and usually start my salads with those plastic (petrochemicals!) boxes filled with beautiful purple & green leaves.  Add some more vegetables (at least one), maybe a little fruit, some nuts and just a little cheese and Ta Da!  Salad!


But by the time I get to opening that box of purple and green lettuce, some of those lettuce leaves have turned midnight purple or even black around the edges, so after washing it I go through leaf by leaf, discarding - with a mighty flick of the wrist - those leaves which are on their way to becoming soil for new lettuce plants.


Next there's the pressure buying locally-grown produce (in Ohio in winter!!!) so as not to contribute to enormous carbon footprints; or, when that fails, selecting produce which wasn't on last night's news as the latest carrier of e coli.


All I want is someone to do all the thinking and prepwork on my salad so that I can eat it happily and without the weight of the Ozone layer on my shoulders.  I don't want to think about pesticides or even about composting worms.   I just want a little fiber, a little sweet, a little salty, and a little crunch.


I want to savor my salads the way I was meant to: like a guinea pig in a field of clover and dandelions: munching & savoring, happily oblivious.