STONE SOUP

     "We should have this salad more often," Larry says.  Well, that's the problem, isn't it?  Maybe I should call this post Stone Salad.  Here's how it works:

You'll need a bag of baby spinach.  No problem.  ( I hope you pull the stems off the spinach before serving it to anyone . . . I never feel more like a large farm animal than when I'm forking a bite of that mesclun, or baby spinach, into my mouth and having to deal with the stems, which never quite make it entirely inside.  I don't care if all the Vitamin C resides in the stems.)
How about some basil, whole, which you just harvested before the predicted frost turns all the bright greenery to compost.  Snip the leaves off into the bowl of spinach.
Some red onion, sliced whisper thin, maybe soaked for the duration of cocktail hour in cold water to mitigate it's intensity.
Half an avocado, chunked.
A good start.  What else is in the refrigerator?
Aha!  Here's where this recipe takes off.  That lovely grilled, lime-scented corn which friend Viki gave you last week.  That would be so good (and it was), but you have to have been lucky enough to know Vik.  Maybe you have something of the sort yourself.
And that piece of smoked chicken breast?  Absolutely.
Anything else?  Well, now for the dressing.
A clove a garlic, mashed into a paste with some large salt crystals, preferably acquired at that cute little salt shop over on the other side of the river.
A few tablespoons of red wine vinegar, about twice as much olive oil.  Put these things into a pint mason jar so you can shake them into emulsion.
Now the recipe you may have been following, sort of, suggests 2 teaspoons of sugar.  Really?  In an olive-oil based dressing.  Hmm.  I decided not.  Might have been good, but I'll never know.
Pour the dressing over, toss everything together.  More salt?  Pepper?  You just have to taste it, always the cook's special appetizer course.

That's how it goes.  At our house, Larry will say: "We use more spoons than any other family I know!"  I think, but do not say, How do we know how many spoons other families may use?  Still, he is right.  If we want a fork, we reach into the silverware drawer.  If we want a spoon, it's most likely in the dishwasher, not washed, of course.  So, in the interest of scientific inquiry, how many spoons do each of you use in the course of a dishwasher's cycle?  There seems to be some difficulty in commenting on this blog, but if you'd try again, I would really like to know the answer.  Just how weird are we?

Now, at 8:00 in the evening, Larry is beginning to make a pot of chile for us to take across the mountains tomorrow.  It has been cold here lately, and I hope we may find snow at elevation tomorrow.  The winter lights are showing on all the trees along the city streets, Halloween decorations up.  It's still dark late into the morning, and a season has turned.  Trick or treat, and goodnight.