the power of salad

My salad days: when I was green in judgment, cold in blood...
--Antony & Cleopatra 1.V

It is beautiful. We moved the table out to the patio and even grant writing is improved by a tall glass of water in the shade (wish me luck!). Here is the salad that I make for myself always: never bothered to put it on here, because I figure that salad is just one of those things that people figure out for themselves, you know?

But once I was crazy about this girl who put sunflower seeds and raisins in her salads. It seemed so exotic and impossible and kind of gross at the time, so its kind of amusing that this is now one of my go-to ways to feed myself. I am not that unhappy and unattainable young woman who would eat a big plastic bowl of salad for lunch-- more of an afternoon porch snack, really-- the sun is shining and I am getting freckles and I am a long way from institutional cutlery and fall in New England. But I started putting sunflower seeds and raisins in my salad and then one day it all came back to me-- the wood moulding of the dining hall, the crunch of chow mein noodles in a bowl of soft serve, the rebellion and pride at cobbling together your own dinner from the salad bar. So. I'm making a borrowed salad and wearing the same house outfit that I wore in high school and writing about blackness again and it's kind of nice to think that there's nothing new under the sun. Literally. The sun!

My favorite salad

+Salad greens
+Goat or feta cheese
+a handful of raisins
+a handful of sunflower seeds
+Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a little maple syrup mixed together
+Fresh pepper

Mix.