Thursday, February 10, 2005

Lettuce Fix You A Salad

I love a good salad.  In this case, my definition of "good" would be a salad without celery, radishes, cucumbers, carrots and red cabbage.  In other words, I don't like many vegetables on my salad; tomatoes, onions and a few pieces of green pepper are about it for veggie salad ingredients.  Of course, I'll pile on mushrooms, cheese and chopped egg if available.  But I'm just not keen on alot of veggies in my salad.  When I eat out, I'll usually order a Caesar salad so I don't have to spend 10 minutes picking out the stuff I don't like.  In all honesty, I order the Caesar salad just so I won't embarrass my dining companions by digging  vegetables out of my plate. 

When dining with someone not easily annoyed, I'll ask the server if the salads are prepackaged.  I this case, "prepackaged" means the lettuce comes with the aggrivating pieces of carrots and red cabbage and they're so small you'll need surgical tweezers to dig them out.  A few restaurants actually still make their salads from scratch, and they'll make a salad for me without the carrots and cabbage if I ask.  I keep a mental list of such restaurants so I know when and when not to ask about the prepackaged salads; heaven forbid I get a PAT confused when they're taking my order.

Sometimes, I have no choice but to order the salad with the dreaded carrots and red cabbage -- I don't like many other vegetables other than green beans, so a salad is one of the few veggie side dishes I'll eat.  When I get carry-out from one of the steak places or fish places, I'll get the prepackaged salad because I'm able to pick out the carrots and red cabbage from the safety of my own home.  It drives my Dad crazy to see me pick out the stuff, but if I 've paid for the meal, he'll let it go unnoticed. 

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