Everything Salad: A Beginning I had just spent the last few months eating packaged foods, Rice-A-Roni, reconstituted potato from flakes, and take-out. He invited me over for dinner and made me a salad. I had recently buried my mother, and he made me a salad. He started by washing the romaine in the sink. He took each leaf separately and rinsed it under the cold water, and dried them, again, leaf by leaf, with a tea towel. I sat in the living room, drinking wine and listening to the crunch of living leaf under knife blade. We talked as he chopped: white button mushrooms, thick green olives, red pepper, green pepper. He cubed Provolone and shaved Asiago as we smiled at each other, through the door way of the kitchen, the light spilling out into the candle-lit living room, where we’d eat our first meal together. He whisked olive oil and balsamic until they became an emulsion, and poured it on the salad in large metal bowl. He brought it to me with two forks, and we sat there on his couch, stabbing at the salad together, taking turns, being polite. I didn’t want to eat too much. I didn’t want to show him how hungry I was.
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