SALAD FIXINGS... A true garden salad story
My first visit to the Valley 10 years ago included a home cooked dinner by Natureman as he was pulling out all the stops to impress the city girl with his self-sufficiency and competency living off the land and cooking. Dinner was served on the charming old house’s screened porch picnic table surrounded by geodes, antlers, a wasp nest, swinging chairs, oil lamps- you get the shabby chic picture. The table donned a tablecloth, cloth napkins to match, wildflowers, a lit candle and a menu that included homemade bread ( 5 pts extra for a man who knows how to bake bread) home grown foods such as garden salad, kibbe (goat meat loaf topped with with pine nuts), baked potato with garlic butter sauce and green beans. BUT dinner had a special twist…
We started with salad and Irv’s 'homemade' salad dressing. The green salad was a colorful mixture of beet greens, chard, spinach, radishes, green onions, sliced strawberries
topped with an edible flower. I poured some dressing and was enjoying the freshest salad I had ever had straight from the garden a hundred yards away. I looked over at Natureman's salad plate and there on his plate was something extra, something that I didn’t get in mine… it looked like a black bean. How come I didn’t get any? I pointed over to his salad about to ask "what’s that?" A smirk broke across his face… he didn’t have to say anything as it struck me that ‘that’ was not a bean, remember I told you that the garden is mulched from the barn. Yep, Natureman hadn’t quite rinsed those greens well enough, there was too much nature in that salad… and you can rest assured that I always doublecheck that the greens are rinsed thoroughly in the End of the Rainbow Valley from that moment on…
My first visit to the Valley 10 years ago included a home cooked dinner by Natureman as he was pulling out all the stops to impress the city girl with his self-sufficiency and competency living off the land and cooking. Dinner was served on the charming old house’s screened porch picnic table surrounded by geodes, antlers, a wasp nest, swinging chairs, oil lamps- you get the shabby chic picture. The table donned a tablecloth, cloth napkins to match, wildflowers, a lit candle and a menu that included homemade bread ( 5 pts extra for a man who knows how to bake bread) home grown foods such as garden salad, kibbe (goat meat loaf topped with with pine nuts), baked potato with garlic butter sauce and green beans. BUT dinner had a special twist…
We started with salad and Irv’s 'homemade' salad dressing. The green salad was a colorful mixture of beet greens, chard, spinach, radishes, green onions, sliced strawberries
topped with an edible flower. I poured some dressing and was enjoying the freshest salad I had ever had straight from the garden a hundred yards away. I looked over at Natureman's salad plate and there on his plate was something extra, something that I didn’t get in mine… it looked like a black bean. How come I didn’t get any? I pointed over to his salad about to ask "what’s that?" A smirk broke across his face… he didn’t have to say anything as it struck me that ‘that’ was not a bean, remember I told you that the garden is mulched from the barn. Yep, Natureman hadn’t quite rinsed those greens well enough, there was too much nature in that salad… and you can rest assured that I always doublecheck that the greens are rinsed thoroughly in the End of the Rainbow Valley from that moment on…
You guys are just too darn cute! I knew Irving was a catch even before I learned about his romantic tendencies and culinary skills. Aaaah. I'm jealous. But then again, I do possess the duct tape king.
ReplyDelete