101 Salads. Really Bittman?

Hey. Last night I read through Mark Bittman's contribution to the NY Times Dining section, Weds. July 22, 2009. My mother-in-law recently got a subscription to the NY Times. She loves the NY Times, being a native New Yorker. Since her usual NY Times supplier, one of her many daughters, just moved to the mid-west, she thought she'd treat herself to regular home delivery. I casually commented that I liked the weekly Dining section and low and behold, when I came home from a recent trip to Vermont, I found two slices of blueberry pie (gone pretty far south) and two Dining sections sitting on my dining room table. My mother-in-law kind of mixed up our traveling plans and thought we were going away this week not next. An honest mistake that had some dire results for our kitty, who she mistakenly left unfed.

Anyways, I first perused the attractive front page of the July 22 Dining segment. In it, Mark Bittman committed to write down 101 salad recipes. That's a lot of recipes folks. I don't think I could come up with 101 versions of anything. And at the time, I didn't think that I could actually read through 101 salad recipes. I mean how interesting could this be- Arugula, tomatoes and shaved Parm.; Arugula, cucumbers and shaved Parm...

That said, I like Mark Bittman's cookbooks, they are so friggin comprehensive and doable. On the other hand, I loathed that self-congratulatory, foodie-ego fest television series that Bittman did with Gywneth Paltow, Mario Batali, and some Spanish actress I can't remember. I try to erase that show from my memory when I open his cookbooks or read his recipes.

His 101 salads didn't fail. I found the segment pretty compelling. I kept my eyelids open long enough to read every single recipe. Some I could have guessed and others were a sweet surprise. Today, all I can think about are these salads. Which to make first? With so many vegetables in season, it's a hard call. I'll keep you posted.