Food fad: Salad

It seems like, every season or so, I gravitate to one easy-to-make dish and eat the heck out of it. This winter it was canned tomato soup. Last summer and into fall it was ramen with peanut butter and the kitchen sink. Last spring it was sushi.

Now, it is the SALAD.

I buy a box of pre-washed spring mix or baby spinach, and I'm good to go. I think the important revelation, for me, was buying a bottle of good sherry wine vinegar: it goes with almost everything, if you're short on ideas. And the second most important revelation was that hot meat + sherry + olive oil + cool salad = bliss.

Here are some of the more successful combinations of late:

• Premixed Thai peanut sauce, blood oranges, red onions, lime juice
  
• Grilled beef, blue cheese, pecans, red onions, grilled asparagus, sherry vinaigrette
  
• Pears, pecans, romano, red onion, pomegranate-balsamic vinaigrette
  
• Fried vegetarian mushroom ham (the perfect consistency for frying, and o mushroom deliciousness), black sesame seeds, shao xing wine, garlic, thai peanut sauce, lime juice
  

I am particularly fond of fruit + cheese + red onion salads.