Salad Days

Lettuce. Yes, lettuce. I know what you're thinking. Stop her before she starts carrying on about leafy, green salad-bowl produce. Your eyes are rolling. Your index finger is reaching for the keyboard to switch to another website. But bear with me for just a tad. As part of an experiment, I planted a few bunches of romaine, which steadily matured in the yard with very little human intervention. After a few weeks, they grew straight and tall, all without pesticides or other chemical growth aids.

So, I cut a bunch of leaves off at the stem, rinsed them well, and tossed them in a salad. Who knew? Unlike romaine lettuce from the supermarket, my fresh-picked leaves were actually flavorful. They paired nicely with some olive oil and balsamic, but the supporting liquids weren't really necessary. The home-grown lettuce could even stand alone, undressed.

I felt like Luther Burbank happening onto a great botany discovery. Keeping my science brain engaged, I continued along this vein. Travel must be arduous for the delicate lettuce leaves, I thought. They have to endure all that bouncing around in the truck, so far from their roots without even a canteen of fresh water for refreshment.

Then I had a another revelation, which was grander still and placed me squarely with the conspiracy theorists. With certainty, I understood that everyone controlling the lettuce industry -- the growers and the sellers -- were all aware of that lettuce lost flavor enroute to market, but they never wanted us to find out. Instead, they wanted us to buy the cardboard lettuce shipped from Salinas or from Mexico, and keep us in the dark about any other salad way of life. Finally, I concluded that, given how easy it was to grow, buying lettuce from the supermarket was not that much different from calling an electrician to replace a burned out light bulb or sending one's sheets and towels out to be laundered, acts that were so indulgent, even if one engaged in them, one would never fess up.

That was a few weeks ago. In the interest of full disclosure, I have since purchased lettuce from the supermarket -- okay, more than once. The problem is space. I didn't really devote enough garden space initially to achieve a daily supply of home-grown leaves. But at least now I know that growing my own salad is not only possible, it's incredibly easy and tastes so much better. Best of all, after you pick a head, it rejuvenates itself and grows again, which means I have more lettuce on the way.

You have to try this. Plant some lettuce as soon as your local climate permits. You won't be disappointed. You'll finally understand the expression "salad days" and why it means "the best time of life."