How I Learned To Prepare a Salad: New Orleans Style

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About the time you finish reading  this article you could be serving this delicious dish to your dinner guest.

The spinach salad has long been a favorite side dish in many New Orleans restaurants. Packed with nutritious greens, red onions, and fresh mushrooms this side salad is the desired starter intro to a great meal. 

 As a young college student living in New Orleans I found myself short on funds. What college student is not? Although today's  college life is probably not the same as say thirty-five years ago. The internet and online courses seem to have made getting a degree a matter if one has the time to complete a course of study. Did I miss out on something? I needed a job to pay for extras. You know, the things that care packages and work-study did not provide. A life!

I applied for a job as a dishwasher at a local family restaurant in walking distance from the university.  I was hired immediately, more like on the spot. After reviewing my application the manager said"can you comeback when your last class is over." 

Longer story short,I said yes and became a dishwasher for The Riverbend Restaurant. The Riverbend was located on South Carollton Avenue in the Uptown District of the city. This is where the old antebellum homes line the streets and the charm of New Orleans are on full display. The Trolley car line  makes its way from the Vieux Carre downtown heading to St.Charles Avenue where its bends around on South Carrollton. Then green trolley cars then u-turns at this staging point and heads back downtown. 

I started washing dishes and worked that position for about four weeks and was promoted to food prep on the weekends. Things happened fast in the food business. Promotions are about scaling up as one's knowledge increases of the business. The next step up the for me would be waiter. I found myself learning the food prep job and the importance of knife handling and other rapid skills. This included chopping vegetables ;food safety rules; and fetching for the Chefs. This is where I was introduced to the Simple Spinach Salad.

The salad consisted of spinach, chopped red onions, mushrooms cut ear-shaped, and  cooked bacon chopped into bits. The  greens leaves were torn and stems removed then placed into a large container. The Chef would gather the ingredients and with his special wine vinaigrette and olive oil dressing.  Tossing this mixture together with garlic croutons and presto, the salad was complete and ready for plating.

This would be a dish I would later make for family and friends. It was one that still never seems to never disappoint. How something so simple can amaze and delight is just  mind-blowing. One of my aunts would later tell me that this was her favorite dish and she often ate this as a complete meal.

Today you can find this simple salad in many versions and recipes on website like Pinterest and foodie sites. Yet I still find that simple is always best. Why change it. If it ain't broke why fix it. 

Cheers to simplicity!

Thanks for allowing me to share the mystery of the Universe with you.