What I Ate, February 8, 2021: A Bullshit Salad

Good morning.

Unless you’re someone like I often am — who doesn’t like positivity being forced upon you. And so if that, then, just — ‘morning.’ I got up at 4:45am.

I haven’t been up up before 5am in a couple months. I was loving my early morning wake ups in the beginning of winter — preparing my stovetop espresso in the dark — making silent deals with the devil ‘if only Ollie would just keep sleeping,’ to allow me the time I had tried to carve out for myself. I adored sitting in the living room, cross-legged, on our love seat, with no one around. It felt like I was gaining ground — on figuring out how to get a piece of myself and a piece of peace back, after losing all solitude since the inception of Covid and Ollie-and-Nic’s 24/7 Nesting.

But suddenly, I stopped. My alarm still went off every day at 4:45am, but I didn’t even hear it anymore. Or, I heard it, and shut it off. Slept until 7 or 8. My body wanted sleep more than my brain wanted freedom, and I heeded the wishes of my being.

But not today. Today, I woke with eyelids that wouldn’t shut again, and a sense of purpose. Maybe I needed to write this. Maybe I just needed to exist, in the early morning, in the dark, in my dwelling, alone, again.

**

Yesterday, I tried to make a salad for lunch. I mean — I made one — and it was pretty, but, it tasted like shit. I love salads. Not side salads, but like giant plate-bowl salads, where there is so much roughage it would blow your mind but where it’s buried under the weight of shimmering, roughly chopped vegetables. Where the gentle gloss of an olive-oil based dressing layers everything like fashionable outwear should. Where crunch adds punch.

Which brings me to the crunch.

This past summer, Ollie and I drove to a friend’s nearby, and he played outdoors, at a distance, with the kids, while I sat outdoors, at a distance, with my friend. She was eating a salad, outside, under the sun, and it was so beautifully composed that I was spellbound. I couldn’t stop watching her take bites. She had volume, and freshness, the crunch from the cruciferous, and a light smattering of some dairy fat via a sprinkle of goat cheese. I took pictures. I made mental notes. I ogled her food and the dedication it took to make such a perfect thing for herself to eat.

I asked for pointers. How she arrived at the composition; other salads she also makes. She gave me baseline tips — which veg to always incorporate, what goes best with what, you know — a rule book. And she brought out a big bag of crunchy dill picker toppers she had on hand, which she told me were the salad equivalent of a home run.

I was riveted. I had toyed with croutons in the past, and occasionally chopped up a nut — but a crunchy, pre-packed, salty, fatty topper, used with a controlled hand?! This would be a game-changer, indeed.

**

The next day, I sat down and googled the brand of her topper. It was to be found at Costco, but I wasn’t mentally ready to enter a giant store with a lot of people and a lot of under-the-nose masks or perhaps questionable social-distancing. I was too scared. So I kept googling, and found a substitute. French’s, the genius brand behind the french fried onion, was already on top of things. They had the fried dill picker toppers, and red peppers and jalapeños! In addition to their french fried onions! I mean! The wizardry! Taking a bunch of healthy ass vegetables, coating them in breading and salt, and frying them to the heavens! Sign me the fuck up!

I ordered all of them. All four variations. Each package was brightly colored, each promising to not only top — but to make — the salads of my dreams. I believed so deeply in their promise at the time. I believed so deeply in me.

**

Yesterday, when I made the salad I made, I started with a solid body of roughage, and topped it with some chopped cucumbers and chopped tomatoes, and some soft avocado. I threw some fake chicken nuggets over it all, crunchy from the oven, drizzled lime juice and olive oil and sprinkled salt and pepper and dove in.

It tasted like shit. Which actually only means that it tasted like nothing.

Panicked, I grabbed the toppers. They were in the back of the cabinet, where they had gone when forgotten — but I knew it was time for them to shine.

I opened two containers, tasted them both. They were either stale or were never actually good to begin with. Their was little salt, and no flavor outside of that. They were sad. I was sad. That day, that I sat on my computer, clicking ‘add to cart’ on all the toppers had been a waste. A waste of time, and a waste of resources. They were not expensive but anything that you don’t use is too expensive, in a sense. I had been foolish, desirous, and obsessed, intent on a food outcome that I thought I could make come true.

**

It felt like I was choking on my salad yesterday, but I got it down, all the same. I shut my eyes and chewed, grateful for the greens, grateful for the vegetables and the fake chicken nuggets on top, grateful for the chance to feed my body nutrients it needs.

I cursed who I had been the day I dared procure the dynasty of the French family.

And then, I gave her grace.

She was just someone who needed to believe in something. She needed to believe she had the power to make the perfect salad. And that day, that belief fueled her. Food is fuel. Just like our belief in ourselves is. I wish the two would come together beautifully, more often. But they don’t necessarily need to.