Tossing The Salad*

*insert gay joke here.

I can’t recall the last time I actually ate a tossed salad. It’s one of those things I just stopped eating. Most of the things I don’t eat anymore are because of that. Me just stopping. I love cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes. I just can’t eat it if it’s mixed together in a giant bowl. I’ve noticed salads have gotten way too complex over the years. A salad is not just a side anymore. It can be an entire meal. You can put, ham, turkey, chicken, eggs, olives, cheese, peas, peppers, onions, etc… It’s an endless list of crap. My salad was simple. I mentioned the lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers earlier. That there, was my salad. Never tried cheese on it. I don’t think I can.

What about dressings? Hmm… That’s a little more complicated. First off, ranch is nasty. I don’t like to dip vegetables in it. Why is it a chicken finger dipping sauce? That’s beyond. Same with honey mustard. I hate mustard. So that is out. Italian is good. I like it on my pasta salads. I’ll get to those a little later. My favorite dressing, hands down, is thousand island! When I go for lunch at TGIFriday’s, I get their, “all you can eat salad bar.” I usually get the same crap. Cucumbers, a pasta salad, carrots, and green peppers. I’ll get my dressing and dip the vegetables in it.  Pure heaven! Every dressing is fat free now. Oh, I did forget one I do like. It’s sun dried tomato dressing. We make this great pasta salad (see? pasta salad.) at work. It calls for the tomato dressing. I’ve tried ceaser dressing. Don’t like it. Did you know the ceaser salad was created by luck? Shouldn’t really trust Wiki, but here is a link to the article about the famous salad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Salad

A competing story, originating in Mexico, concerns Alex Cardini, who was Chef of Hotel Peñafiel in Tehuacán. Cardini, the son of an Italian immigrant, made the Caesar Salad specially for a gourmet contest in Tijuana, winning first place with his innovative dish.

Some historians believe that the salad was created for a group of Hollywood stars after a long weekend party. Still others suggest that brother Alex created it as “Aviator’s salad” for a bunch of San Diego aviator comrades who were in a hurry, and the dish was renamed later, when Alex was a partner of his brother. A few fellows among Cardini’s personnel also claimed the authorship, but without success.

Pasta salads are a whole different story. There is this salad at TGIFriday’s that is amazing. I don’t know what’s all in it but it is the only reason I get the salad bar. We make quite a few salads at work. If memory serves me right, I think we make, maybe…6 pasta salads. Out of those 6, I eat 2 of them. One of them has too much crap in it, but I just pick it out. I like cheese but it’s cheese overload. Plus, it has green olives and I perfer the black over the green.

I am just not a salad person. I love vegetables. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again.

“I love cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes. I just can’t eat it if it’s mixed together in a giant bowl.”

Are you a salad person? You dressing of choice?