A Bite-Size, No-Frills, All-Guarantee Recipe to A Great Salad

Green lettuce (ripped up into bite-size pieces; Romaine lettuce could do here as well)
Chopped red peppers
Any other manner of favourite veggies
*Red wine vinegar (to taste)
*Salt and pepper (to taste)

I owe this really to my boss/co-worker at the Vancouver Farmers Markets, Ms. Jen Pleadwell. A couple weeks ago she was eating a delicious homemade lunch of borscht and salad, and I commented on its said deliciousness. We entered a discussion about food, fresh ingredients, good knives, salads, and the like. The golden nugget of truth that she provided was that the salad was just some romaine lettuce and red wine vinegar. Most of us will already know that the standard homemade dressing is olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with some crushed garlic and salt/pepper to personal opinion and taste. But, you see, red wine vinegar on its own with some salt and pepper is all you need. I bought a 1L bottle of Italian red wine vinegar for $3 from Santa Barbara Market on the weekend and it is awesome both in taste, quality, and value. I really recommend it. I've made two, delicious, simple, straightforward salads so far and I have been very pleased with it. It has really motivated me to get back on the leafy salad bandwagon again. In all truthfulness, that is why I bought it, to get me eating some fresh vegetables again. This is something that both the cash-strapped and cash-abundant can afford, trust me, because I am so very much in the former, unfortunate category. So, rip up that lettuce, splash that vinegar, and shake that salt 'n' peppa.

Salads

My quest for a solidly good, problem-free restaurant salad continues. I have been continuously disappointed, either extremely or slightly, with almost every restaurant salad I have ever had. I mean, how hard is it really to make a salad with fresh, WASHED (wow, what a concept!), tasty, NOT WILTED lettuce or salad greens. Honestly. Also, I need to get back into the smart and healthy habit of ordering dressing on the side. Restaurants reliably drown an otherwise potentially good salad with dressing. And, alternatively, when I put the dressing on myself at a restaurant, I put about half to three-quarters of the amount they give me. There is one salad that has never really disappointed me, often impressed me actually: the Point Grey Cobb Salad from Point Grey Golf & Country Club. Crunchy iceberg lettuce (something restaurants do not use enough...or ever),sliced tomatoes, chunks of blue cheese, shrimp, egg, avocado, and crunchy bacon. With a unique buttermilk something or other dressing. Nice stuff. I had a salad at Earl's the other day which was very unique and healthy, and enjoyable, but again, there were a couple pieces of lettuce that tasted "dirty" and as usual, the last pieces of salad greens were kind of soppy and gross. But the unique ingredients were: strawberries, feta, and quinoa. The latter is a revelation, but is so expensive at the grocery store. I guess I have to go all the way to Peru to get a decent price for it. It is a labour-intensive crop, so to an extent I understand the price. Then, today, at St. Augustine's on the Drive, I got the Chop Chop Salad, which was supposed to have bacon in it, but I'm pretty sure it didn't. Anyways, it was great at first, but then again as usual, the greens were soppy and over-dressed. Blue cheese, craisins, and candied pecans are a lovely dance on the palate. The sliced grape tomatoes were too cold though; they hurt my teeth! Plus, after munching on heirloom tomatoes during the late summer from Klipper's Organics, I realized that the majority of tomatoes served at restaurants and from places like Safeway, are well, the worst.
The search for a good restaurant salad continues.
P.S: Apparently eating yogurt is a good option for those who are lactose-intolerant. Thus, I have bought and have been eating Activia Fibre yogurt since yesterday. Here's to getting regular again! TMI? Deal with it.

Fine Dining Ain't So Fine When It's Been Microwaved

Well, there's lots of food news. Maybe I should blog it in list form, for expediency's sake. Alright. Here we go.
Grandma Ople's Apple Pie Recipe: Success
Cranberry Pomegranate Sauce: Semi-Success
Thanksgiving Dinner: Thoroughly enjoyable. Thanksgiving Dinner Casualties: One of my mum's pots and the sanity of her cats.
Thanksgiving Dinner with Dad: At the Cannery.
The Cannery: A+! Full blown shame on Port Vancouver (or whomever) for not renewing their lease.
Fantastic food, high quality and fully knowledgeable service, cozy architecture, waterfront herb garden, kudos for participating in the OceanWise program, magical view. All-around gem.
Today's Lunch: Another fantastic salad. Green leaf lettuce, chopped on the vine tomatoes, chopped celery, shrimp pan-fried in PAM olive oil, Asian crushed garlic, and old-fashioned dijon mustard, crumbled blue cheese, and blue cheese dressing. Delish. Just a dash of lemon juice would have probably have been the best dressing, but well maybe more than a dash. But I don't have any.
Today's Afternoon Snack: Leftover Salmon Wellington from the Cannery. Totally good, but the Pinot Noir suace didn't really hold up after 2 minutes in the microwave. Fine foods don't like nasty microwaves I guess. Makes sense. I actually fell nauseous right now. Frack. Hopefully that peppermint tea with Vlad's Apiary's sweet clover honey will heal my noxious insides.
Future October Food Activity: Mushroom foraging with the Vancouver Mycological Society in Pacific Spirit Park on Halloween! I am so excited for this. I would like a partner though. Any takers? I cite the wild foraging article in the most recent edition of Edible Vancouver and the wild and chanterelle mushroom foragers profiled in Tableland as my inspiration.  
http://www.ediblecommunities.com/vancouver/Recent-Articles/committing-forage-ery.htm
'Til next time,
The Fledgling Basement Suite Cook.

Encouragement

What wonderful timing. What wonderful timing of the message that an old friend sent me today telling me she 'effing loves my blog and to keep it up!' She is *The Best Cook (alias used), who was one of the cooks in my small dorm during second year...and first year too? First year or second year TBC? You remind me. As much as this blog is mainly for myself, to get out thoughts and be creative and enter the world of 'Blog', I have to admit that I like the idea of popularity and fame. Or, more than that, others reading what I have to say and entering in a dialogue with them. Intelligent conversation is hard to find, harder than it should be. But anyways, yay! I have two official bleaders!
Well, food. I'm making my boyfriend, my mum, and myself Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Ambitious, yes? Insane, most likely. Fucking crazy, yea probably. The menu: turkey risotto, mashed potatoes and yams, steamed green veggie of some sort, and an apple pie. It is totally do-able, but I'm working all weekend and then we have to go back to New West, yada yada. The apple pie will either be made by yours truly on Saturday or will be bought. Maybe from a market vendor this weekend actually. Epiphany! (angelic voices sing down from heaven).
What's a good recipe I've made lately. Well last week I set myself a goal: eat a salad a day. I feel like I've mentioned this already, but regardless, I have been pretty darn successful. 7 out of 9 days I have eaten a salad. Some days with some protein thrown in a la imitation crab meat, sometimes with some soy or blue cheese crumbled on, sometimes with a sandwich. In the effort to waste not want not-especially since any idea of wasting of any kind of late sends me into a tailspin of paralyzing guilt (no exaggeration)-I have been using the olive juice from some store-bought olives I finished as salad dressing. It's perfect, really nice, delicate, low calories (I'm guessing:S), and economical. The salads, by the way, have been looking GORGEOUS. Nothing like the rich emerald of a bed of bright green green lettuce made ever more brilliant with chopped sweet red peppers and tomatoes, with a sprinkling of the pearl white and rich green of green onions. Mmmhmmm. Nice. The thing is is that beauty does not exactly translate on my digital camera, which is effing awesome by the way. My technique and lighting must be improved. I'm on the waiting list for a food photography class that is part of the Sustenance festival. I doubt I'll get in; I don't even know if I can go anymore. But that would be handy, spice up my blog with some food porn. Not like American Pie-fucking an apple pie food porn, but like unbelievably sensuous, colourful, hot hot food photography. Food porn. Yeaaah.
Alright enough of that. I still need a mixing bowl and a whisk. I have a coffee bean grinder now though! Thanks Anthony! I lurrrv you. Muchos. Muchos gracios. Next thing: buy some sweet ethical bean coffee beans, grind 'em, make a sweet sweet jesus cup of joe in my bodum from Ikea, and bask in the glory of fresh coffee. Mind you, I haven't ever used a Bodum press before. Well I did once, at Steeps on Broadway. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, and I'm pretty sure the tea was supposed to taste better than it did. 'Til next time.