Salad Days (the end of my)

I’m not a salad person. As a side dish, they’re fine, but as a main dish? Deprivation on a plate.

Last month I created a salad I like based on the recipes in YOU: On a Diet. The first time I ate it, I marveled at how satisfied I felt. I even mentioned it to Brian. My mother, the dear woman, has watched without comment as I wolfed down this salad like a Survivor contestant winning a food reward.

Here’s what’s in it: romaine lettuce, feta cheese, walnuts, raisins, and oil and vinegar dressing. Nothing fancy, and yet ... Sweet! Salty! Savory, creamy and crunchy! It’s healthy, but most important, it’s filling.

This salad was so filling and satisfying that I almost posted about it just as a public service. “Attention: Salad can fulfill. No loaf of bread required!”

Monday night, as I sat hunched over my bowl, shoveling walnuts and raisins into my mouth while my just-arrived relative wondered when I might feed her, a phrase popped into my head:

Serves two.

After weeks of scarfing this salad like a pig at the trough, I realized the amount of raisins, feta, walnuts and salad dressing allowed in the book were for two people. Hence the satisfaction.

Head hung low, I plodded over to the kitchen and checked the recipe. It confirmed my fears: Two servings.

Oh, but there’s more. The next night, as I dutifully prepared frozen sugar snap peas for the microwave, I used the same tiny cup I’d measured my salad dressing in to measure some water. That’s when I noticed that the left side measures tablespoons, not teaspoons.

So. The next time you feel unimpressed with your own mental acuity, remember me. Doing oh so well on my diet, eating two entire adult-sized meals in one sitting with six times the allowed amount of fatty salad dressing.

Compared to me you are, no doubt, brilliant.