Salads in a Non-Salad Country

I grew up eating a lot of Chinese food, but also having my fair share of going to American restaurants and friends' homes for western food.  Often, salad plays a role as a starter or accompaniment to the meal.  One of my favorites restaurants in California is Souplantation, which is basically a huge salad bar and an excuse to have clam chowder, brownies and muffins with your meal.  In the modern American supermarket, salad dressing dominates a large section of an aisle.  There are a multitude of choices and brands, not to mention salad fixings like croutons of every description, bacon bits, soy crisps, seed toppings.

So oddly enough, I've started getting really into salads here in England.  Part of my obsession is the types of lettuce here.  (That last sentence sounds really boring, doesn't it?)  Rocket, watercress, cos, little gem-- different varieties than we typically have in the States-- typically bagged.  Unlike the wall of salad lettuce options at Wegmans in State College, there are fewer choices and there aren't a lot of the "low end" bags of salad to wade through.  They also rarely come with dressing and fixings, except Caesar.  It's just the basic nice bags.  I find that having fewer, better options is quite nice.

Monday's lunch (with soup)

I've been making my own salad dressing these past few months, but thought I'd check out the options in Tesco earlier this week.  Funny, I couldn't remember ever seeing salad dressings, so I had a look around.  Yes, there is a section.  It's tiny.  Paul Newman has three facings, perhaps one other brand, and then it's all Tesco labels.  But there aren't that many varieties.  Also, I stumbled upon three types of croutons in very small bags.  In Wegmans, we can get at least a dozen types and the bags are 3x larger.

Mary Berry and another PRO-puh dessert

I now have bottled Mary Berry's vinaigrette on hand.  I bought the Mary Berry dressing on a whim one day at Thornton's cafe because I thought Anna would get a kick out of it.  She imitates Mary Berry, the British Martha Stewart, who talks about "PROH-puh (proper) ice CREAM."  While in London, the four of us happened to catch her on "Great British Revival" in which she admonished those who ate store bought ice cream that was not full of simple ingredients.  We had the dressing the other night during dinner with Grandma and Grandpa.  I must admit, we all thought it was amazing.  Definitely proper.