Obsessed

I took a walk around Montrose Harbor today. The sky looked like this.

Granted, it was twenty degrees out and my fingers fell off into the frozen lake, but the sky looked like spring. Spring! Real, live spring. As I watched the gigantic scavenging geese snatch up the last bits of my fallen fingers, I was distracted by not only this blue, blue sky, but by something greenish. There. Was. Something. Green. Something in the world was green! I leaped over to inspect my findings. It was this:
Upon seeing this head of celery on the ground at a public park, I didn't think, ewww or iccckk or what the hell? Okay, so I did think what the hell, but I also thought mmm, salad. That's right. I am partially embarrassed, partially confused, by my own reaction. But listen, it's like this.

Winter has got me obsessed with salad. Obsessed. Every winter I long for the bright, real colors of the produce at the farmers' markets, the vibrant tomatoes and luscious lettuce, the sweet, real smells of earth and sun and living. And every winter I try to make do, yadda yadda yadda. I buy the produce at the stores that looks bearable and not too withered, hanging my head as to avoid the wrath of the locally-grown-vegetable gods, vowing to make up for it as soon as I can, as soon as the earth (in these parts) starts to produce real things again. Then, when I can't stand to rummage through the limp zucchini and bruised kale anymore, I resort to frozen bags of spinach, peas, corn, and green beans. At least they have color and look fresh, compared to the flaccid jicama and celery root that I encountered at the grocery store today. (Uh, yes. Flaccid jicama. I, like you, didn't know that jicama could actually become flaccid. But it did. These are rough times, folks.)

And after a bunch of this fussing about, and telling myself what a brat I am because at least I have flaccid jicama, which is better than no food at all, I decide that winter is certainly not going to hold me back any longer. And that's when I go salad crazy. My annual salad lunacy just hit a few weeks ago, and I predict it will stick around until, oh, say, May, when it will probably still be 20 degrees and snowing. But that's neither here nor there! We're talking about salad days here.

Salad in the winter is like dancing to Ricky Martin or dusting under the bed. It feels a little silly, but then, when you really get into it, you realize it's just the greatest thing ever. In addition to my celery inspiration today, I also saw some lettuce that really got me in the mood:
Mmmm. Lettuce core. Speckled with sand and surrounded by dirty patches of snow. And, no, I did not take these items home. I left them right where they belonged and I did what any normal, salad-obsessed girl would do. I went to the store and bought the most stable vegetables I could find.

The salads I am into these days are not lettuce salads at all, actually. My mom loves lettuce salads (well, any salad at all, really!) and she's very good at eating any salad you throw her way. She is the queen of pulling leftovers out of the fridge, placing them on top of a bed of greens, and declaring it salad. I'm not talking about dumping out the lasagna and the bean soup onto the lettuce, I'm just talking about using other leftover salads, as well as other odds and ends -- nuts, fruits, beans, maybe some cheese. My mother, she is very good at the salad construction because she doesn't overthink it. Me, I plan for weeks the way I'm going to cut the fennel bulb. So, this makes my mother way more easygoing then me. Officially.

Not only do I overthink, but I also have a slight, uh, problem with one very certain salad ingredient. This ingredient happens to also be my mother's very, very all time favorite salad ingredient. Raw onion. I know, I know, something is wrong with me. Especially considering how terribly picky I am about it. I won't eat raw red or white onion (in my defense, raw red onion truly does not sit well with me, intestinally speaking). I will, however, happily eat raw scallions, or small raw bulb onions -- the latter of which should be diced, not sliced. I will happily eat leeks and caramelized onions of any variety. And I love garlic. Shallots are okay, but not when they are raw. I even went so far this summer to eat a white onion raw, but only because it was so much less potent and acidic and scary than a regular white onion from the store. Okay, so you the idea (and more on this onion topic later, because this issue has been with me my whole life).

My point is that my mother loves raw onions with all her heart, and I do not, and we still love each other a whole lot. See? Things really can work out. We can overcome our differences, you warmongers out there! So, we both love salad, all the time, just in slightly different ways. She and my dad eat salads most nights with dinner, but I am not quite as diligent. I tend to eat salads a few times a week, but mainly because I am obsessive (do you see a theme here?) about the ways in which I prepare them. It has to be just right. But, alas! I am trying to become less crazy, less particular. This way, you see, I'll be more like my mother, which is, in case you don't know, a very good thing.

Tuesday Salad
Peas, scallions, fennel bulb, fennel tops, feta, radishes, olive oil, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, lemon juice.

Thursday Salad
Cabbage, scallions, carrots, radishes, fennel bulb, red pepper flakes, lime olive oil, pineapple balsamic, salt, pepper, garlic.

Sunday Salad
Jicama, cilantro, cabbage, scallions, peanuts, lime juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, jalapeno, and, of course, chow mein noodles.

Oh, winter salad, please be my valentine!