Tonight’s dinner menu featuring manly food was already quite
well-developed* when I decided to add another side dish: a never-before and
never-again unique salad that turned out to be the hit of the meal.
It all started because of the black olives. A few old ones in the frig had been begging me to be used (picture their little pit-holes shouting, like wide-open mouths, “Eat me, eat me, EEEAT MEEEE!”), so I thought, “Now what would go well
with those olives?” A few minutes
passed. “Italian,” I told
myself. “Think Italian.”
I tried my old squinting trick when my eyes become slits
(this helps me act impulsively rather than think too hard), then grabbed a
zucchini from the produce drawer and made it into long, spaghetti-like strips with
my hand-crank spirooli. I tossed
the raw zucchini “noodles” with the olives. So far so good.
“What now?” I opened the produce drawer to look for the answer to my question. “OH. It needs some color. There – red pepper and burmuda onion.” So I chopped half of a red bell pepper
and some onion and threw the ruby pieces into the bowl as well.
“But if this is supposed to be Italian, what about tomatoes? Shouldn’t there be tomatoes?” However, I remembered one of the
manly-men coming to dinner didn’t like fresh tomatoes. “Surely he wouldn’t notice some small
pieces of sun-dried tomatoes,” I rationalized. So I chopped a handful of yummy, chewy sun-dried tomatoes
and put them in a separate bowl to soak in olive oil.
“And what about cheese?” I asked myself. “Feta would be perfect, but I don’t
have any. Hmmmm. Some asiago would be nice – I have some
in the freezer I could grate!”
But then I reminded myself: one of these guys is lactose
intolerant. NO CHEESE.
“Let’s see.
Seasoning. Salt, garlic
powder, oregano, and basil.” I
shook the spices over the vegetables, spilling the basil – oops – and thus
adding probably twice as much as expected. “And here’s a little leftover
homemade celery seed dressing.
I’ll use that.”
But the dressing was not near enough. “Better add more olive oil – oh, and
the oil along with the sun-dried tomatoes that have been soaking.”
It was looking pretty good, but I remembered another one of
manly-men expected at our table typically preferred creamy salad
dressings. So I decided on a
compromise: chunks of avocado.
Surely that would give the salad a creamy taste.
The result was visually enticing. “Nice. I like it. Those black olives really started something,” I told myself.
But the verdict was still out. What
would the guys think? Would they
even try it, or turn the other way and gorge on meat and potatoes? I anticipated the usual polite
recognition when I try crazy salad mixtures (which happens frequently), but
that’s about all.
Dinnertime arrived. I didn’t say much, but watched to see what
would happen. Of course the men
piled their plates high with manly food, but…lo and behold….they also tried the
salad! In the midst of other conversation,
one manly-man (the one who dislikes tomatoes) exclaimed that the salad was
exceptionally good. “This is great
stuff! What IS it?” Another one
agreed that it was very tasty (the one who prefers creamy dressings), and a
third person echoed the others.
“What all is in it?” they wanted to know. I was floored.
“Uh….let’s see…” I responded. I honestly had to think hard before responding. The salad had evolved without much premeditated
thought, but I finally pieced the story together and told them – which is why
I’m able to write this blog.
*venison roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli, fresh
kale salad with pine nuts, fresh strawberries, gluten-free blueberry bread made
with coconut flour and rice flour.
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