My favorite foods include a big salad
The other day I took one of those Facebook questionnaires. The computer asked me to name my four favorite foods.
I think I’d rather take the SATs. I’m not a very decisive person. At a restaurant I have to be told the specials … twice. Servers hate me, but I tip well.
It’s hard to pick four of anything. I run out of steam after two. Pizza was easy. I think most Americans love pizza.
Pizza can be plain or fancy. It’s so versatile. I love the regular sauce and cheese variety, but I’ve also liked ones with fingerling potatoes and pesto on them.
I’ve had roasted pears and arugula on pizza.
You can put anything on a slab of dough and call it a pizza.
I finally decided on my four things. I picked roasted root vegetables as number two, French fries as number three, and a big salad as number four.
No one picks salad. I secretly hoped this survey wasn’t for “Family Feud,” because I may have skewed the curve. “Oh, Johnson family you lose.
The top survey answers were pizza, lasagna, steak, French fries and one moron in Pennsylvania said salad. But we do have a year’s supply of Turtle Wax for you.”
Side note: I don’t really watch “Family Feud.” I’m not sure how it works.
I love a big salad. It didn’t used to be my favorite. When I was growing up, we only had one lettuce.
The other kinds hadn’t been invented yet. We only had iceberg. I’m sure you’re curious why they would name a lettuce after something that sunk the Titanic. Its flavor was wet crunch, like an actual iceberg.
In the mid-to-late ’80s, lettuce got exciting. Now we have romaine, arugula, endive, radicchio, frisee, loose leaf, butterhead and more.
Plus, I expanded the things I put on a salad. I discovered feta cheese, Kalamata olives and pepperoncini.
No, I wasn’t the Christopher Columbus of salad, but I did go on a college trip to Greece.
Then, I learned that in Italy a salad could be just mozzarella cheese, basil and some tomatoes. The Caprese is the pizza of salad.
I found I liked apples, beets, grapes, nuts, strawberries or pomegranate seeds in a salad. I realized you can put anything in one as long as you start with a lettuce base.
In Pittsburgh, you can get shredded cheese and French fries on a salad. Some restaurants put so much cheese on one salad you could feed a family of mice for a year.
Yes, a steak salad is a heart attack in a bowl, but you’ve counterbalanced all the cholesterol with a few leaves of lettuce and a stray tomato, so you’re good.
In January, on my last trip to California, I went to Abbot’s Pizza and ordered the salad pizza.
It was a chopped salad on a pizza with fresh slices of avocado.
I’m going to make a pizza with arugula, avocados, French fries and roasted root veggies.
Who needs four favorite foods when you can eat them all at once?