PEG SALAD By Chris Koch I love salad. I mean, I really love salad. During the Summer I might have grill and salad 4-5 times a week . I’ve become somewhat famous for my salad prowess and have even inspired some to become passionate about salad themselves and to embark on their own salad adventures -- finding the perfect combination of a vast possibility of ingredients that most profoundly expresses their heart’s true feelings about the long-reigning yummiest health-food concept that humans ever conjured, hands-down. When I make a salad for myself I am, in effect, saying... “I love and care about you and want you to do something good for yourself every once in a while... and I’ve made that very easy for you because THE SHIT IN THIS BOWL TOTALLY EFFIN’ ROCKS!!!”’ Now, many of you know that my eldest sister Peg is on a cancer journey right now. She’s super-smart and a fighter and she’s got a great team of supporters (“Team Peggy”) of which I am very proud to be a member. If that group only consisted of the extended family it would be a formidable collection, but there are many others that strengthen our coalition as well. Of course, I think about her a lot these days and sometimes, especially around dinner time, I think about her as pertains to salad. You see, Peggy is the reason why I love salad so much. She formed in me a true salad lover. My mother made something like a salad. I don’t mean to put dear old Mom down for she was only following the salad trends of the day, but doggonit, she used “Iceberg Lettuce” – the poster-child for vegetable anaemia. Is there really any point to it? Well, as fate would have it, Peggy married a Greek fellow and it is no secret that the Greeks know a thing or two about salad. She totally immersed herself in the customs and flavours of the Greek kitchen and soon became a master of many amazing recipes... but to me she is a salad Jedi Warrior. She became practiced in the art of salad and thankfully, cunningly, took over salad preparation for any family event that involved food. "Hey, Mom... why don’t you let me get the salad!” Only I knew what that what she really meant was... “Put down the Iceberg, lady, and step away from the stainless steel bowl!” I remember being a gangly pubescent teen and how, during the after dinner clean-up phase, she would hand me the large bowl with all of the vegetable nuggets swimming in a brine of olive oil, garlic and vinegar amongst the hyper-saturated lettuce leaves ( they were green!) and I would devour them all and then chase it down with the indescribably delicious nectar that remained at the bottom. I totally became her go-to guy when it came to finishing the salad... as far as I know I never disappointed. My own salad is, of course, totally different than her salad. I’ve made mine for her a few times, serving it with the anxiety and anticipation of an apprentice, hoping for some acknowledgment or even just an excited, “Mmm!”. But maybe it’s impossible for one salad lover to really push the buttons of another salad lover, and everyone has the complete right to be the penultimate critic with the final say... “Pretty good, but it doesn’t have any slivered macadamia nuts or orange-infused cranberries.” (Salad is truly the epitome of food creativity. There is no end to the variation.) Anyhow, when I was making dinner tonight, feeling an intense appreciation for her involvement in my life (and how she gave me my love of salad), I decided that I wasn’t going to hold this expression of love off for a future date but would send it out to her right now. Thanks so much Peg.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 02:17:07 +0000
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