last lettuce
May 11, 2008
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These have been my salad days.
From early April until now, as the lettuce season ends. No lunch or dinner (and rarely a breakfast) is complete without leafy greens. A bed of lettuce is the perfect way to heap together all of the motley items you' d like to eat, but can' t always justify putting together any other way. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, leftover pasta—can all be tossed together and camouflaged between the leaves of a Boston Bibb, a loose mix of mesclun, or a crunchy mass of Romaine.
Gone are the days of childhood picnics, when each food group had to be carefully separated by at least an inch of white space on the plate. Ketchup could never touch the lettuce; broccoli was not allowed near the macaroni and cheese. Now, I have to camouflage how many ingredients I mix together, afraid that even adventurous eaters will look askance at my zany combinations.
Thank you lettuce, for making my surreptitious eating possible. I sure will miss the heads I' ve bought straight from the ground in these first months of spring. My fridge is full of more leaves than I can possibly eat before they begin to wilt. I' ll have to share or sauté. But who could blame me when I heard these words at Saturday' s market, “Yep, get ‘em while you can. This is the last batch of lettuce for the season.”Shakespeare must have been talking about the delicate greenery of April and May when he invented the term that has defined the last few weeks of my life at the local table.
(Other favorites on the wane.)
