Salad 2011 + Bacon, or The Devastating, Magnificent Now

This is a blog about salads. Joni Mitchell wrote, "everything comes and goes marked by lovers and styles of clothes." She left out "and salads." My most felt moments, highest highs, loneliest days, can be matched to the year's salad (effortlessly, immediately. The salad is the external and internal marker of my times.) Most years, by course of natural evolution, have salads of their own. Some salads persist across the years. Every job has a salad, as does every project. Every apartment has a salad. Every home, every house. My not quite three year old son has his own salad ("Salad without lettuce").  I look forward to the day my baby daughter has chosen her first.

The temptation is to start this blog at the beginning, the stealthy entry of salad into my digestive repertoire, but perhaps a non-sequential approach is best. I will say that my de facto relationship with salad began in 1995, in Portland Oregon, inclusive of a batch of fresh cilantro, walnuts, and a can of mandarins, and propelled by my then-vegan brother. A story for another day. Let's start where we are, in the devastating, magnificent now.

I ate today's salad, Salad 2011 + bacon,* at about 2:15 pm. The ingredients:

• Fresh Express (bagged, pre-washed, no doubt vitamin-free) Tender Ruby Reds lettuce
• Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burger, microwaved one minute
• one ripe avocado, room temperature, cut into 18 or so small cubes (9-12 cubes per half)
• grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 strips America's Choice pre-cooked microwaveable bacon*
• raisins
• thinly sliced almonds
• fat squirt of brown deli mustard
• olive oil
• tiny drizzle of honey

* I am a vegetarian who occasionally slides into bacon-love.

I prepare Salad 2011 by stacking everything on top of a super dense, tall stack of greens, in a deep ceramic cereal bowl, then lamely tossing as I eat. (I often get big mouthfuls of mustard between lettuce leaves, or an unexpected mouthful of raisins.)

Excruciating moments of mouthwatering deliciousness:

• when the crispy chips of honey-drizzled microwave bacon coat a cube of soft, creamy avocado
• each meaty bite of tender greens cemented together with gobs of spicy deli mustard
• the last bites, when the greens, avocado, and proteins are gone, and all that is left is an olive oil-coated trail mix of cool shredded cheddar, raisins, and almond slices. Washed down the last fork full with ice cold diet coke, out of a can. Heaven.

For every episode in my life since 1995, there has been a salad.  I will use this blog to tell you about them. My salads have changed my life. I think of each with fondness and wonder. I salivate at the thought of them. They have accompanied me through my somewhat erratic and, I like to think, indescribable youth, my intense career cultivation, friendships, engagement, and marriage. Strange ingredients have presented themselves during pregnancies. At other times, salads have made me healthy and thin. My salads have certifiably, slowly eroded my disordered eating. They've given me a culinary focal point. I have stood by my salads even when my Ayurvedic Nutritionist told me in 2001 that I was consuming too much raw food. And I will continue to savor each overstuffed bowl-full.

Each week I will share with you a salad concoction and a story, perhaps for your lunchtime reading. And I  look forward to hearing about yours.