Salad and pre-carpentry
Today the biggest part of my salad saga was not the salad I ate — Colorado pears, local greens, blue cheese with a Dijon-white wine vinaigrette. Rather, it was acquiring lumber to make three cold frames in the backyard. My summer procrastination meant that I didn’t get these built in time to plant some greens in July for winter-long eating. The stuff I’ll be putting outside now will mean that I’ll get a few leaves in the fall, but more in the very early spring. Although I like to believe that living in the moment is the best thing — so very intentional and all — I’m already wishing myself into the future to eat those greens. In the meantime, I’ll also be attempting to raise spring mix inside under the flourescent lights I generally use to start seeds of warm weather vegetables. Read more
I have seen the future, and it is salad
I believe in the power of salad.
This week, I had lunch with my sixth-grader at Broomfield Heights Middle School.
As I dished up my own lunch of fresh, local greens, peppers, celery and carrots, middle schoolers were lining up at the salad bar, piling salad in paper bowls and grabbing apples and peaches. The creamy, garlicky dressing I chose was cleverly packaged in a squeeze bottle with a small opening, making it impossible to get ladles full of dressing without spending a couple of precious lunch period minutes squeezing.
My husband and I sat down with our son and three other sixth-grade boys, all of whom had side salads and all of whom were eating them. A glance around the lunchroom revealed that sixth-graders eating salad is now the norm at this Boulder Valley school.
The norm.
Parents, need I say this is something of an earth-shattering development? Those of you who have been donating to Boulder’s new school lunch program and seeing your tax dollars pay for a portion of it, should take some time to appreciate what a big shift it is to have fresh food in a school lunch every day.
Salad is the norm. Read more



