GASTRONORMOUS

TUESDAY’s lunch–from Gourmet Galley, Greenwich, CT
Green salad with broccoli, carrots, feta, hard-boiled egg, chick peas, croutons.

Today’s salad was okay by Gourmet Galley standards. They gave me just the egg white, rather than the entire boiled egg, and about a quarter of the lettuce was wilted or worse, but that is to be expected here, unfortunately. Usually, when I order a mixed green salad from this establishment, they send romaine. It is this type of carelessness that is endemic among lunch places in the area of Greenwich, for some fathomless reason. I can forgive a restaurant that under-salts something, or just gets a combination of flavors not quite right, but I am hard pressed to find an excuse for serving rotten lettuce, or just delivering a completely different item than what one ordered (which happens frequently).

The one stand-out good thing about this salad was the croutons. They are homemade and really garlicky. Everything else is pre-prepped or from a can, and so pretty hard to mess up, unless you fail to pick out the wilted and rotting lettuce, that is. Sigh!

I am beginning to think positing about these lunches was a bad idea. It is pretty depressing (well, as depressing as a free lunch can get, I suppose). I am holding out for something good tomorrow!

To make amends for the unhealthy lunch from yesterday, last night I made a simple salad with a vinaigrette I threw together using some unusual components.

I put into the salad an array of vegetables I had on hand: greens, scallions, peppadews, some beautiful, lumpy radishes from the farmers market, and a bit of parmesan.

For the vinaigrette, I used mandarin-flavored olive oil, a freebie a received when I bought some other items at O & Co. last week. I wisked it with some of the sweet-spicy brine from the aforemetioned peppadews, some white balsamic, a small dab of red pepper paste, salt, and pepper. When I tasted it, the dressing was a bit too orangey, so I added in some plain olive oil to tone it town a bit.

The dressing with the touch of orange was really delicious and refreshing on the salad–perfect for a light summer meal. This vinaigrette would work really well on a spinach-orange-avocado salad, too. The mandarin oil is really versatile; It would be delicious in many chicken dishes, and I look forward to using it in a dessert. Maybe a mandarin olive oil pound cake? ideas, anyone?