Let's get right to it:
mixed spring greens with spinach, out of a bag
one whole ripe room temperature avocado, cubed
4 strips microwave bacon
a dusting of sliced honey roasted almonds
sea salt to taste
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
This salad requires a lot of lettuce, packed firmly into the bowl. You need to be able to sink your teeth into the tightly packed greens. I microwave the bacon for longer than intended so that the wafer thin strips become crumbly and brittle, and I bash them up over the top of the lettuce. Then I cube the avocado (ripe, room temperature) in its skin and spoon out the cubes onto the layer of bacon. Then salt. Then the almond slices. Then the vinegar and oil (generous amounts of both.)
This is an exciting salad for me because it marks some kind of metabolic return to the tastes of non-pregnancy. My baby is nearly a year old and, remarkably, all my tastes (and other physical processes) seem to finally have returned to normal. I am endlessly fascinated by the weirdness of procreation and all the unexpected impacts pregnancy and child-birth have had on every aspect of my life. One of which is that for the past 20 or so months, balsamic vinegar has tasted like astringent. Super harsh and pucker-y. Not delicious. Not even palatable. Until last week, when I was moved to pour it all over this new salad and omg, delicious delicious delicious. Salty, creamy, sweet, smokey. The almost peanut-buttery flavor of the bacon and oil together. The slight sweetness of the summer Mexican avocados in perfect perfect season. The dense chew of the spinach, the grit of the salt, which sometimes tastes almost sweet in combination with the greens and the vinegar.
