Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

May 5 2010

First Farmer’s Market Day of 2010

It’s a happy day in the Eleventh household when the local Farmer’s Markets commence again for the season.  Tonight was the first Farmer’s Market of the season at our little local gathering area, in an open space between the stores and restaurants on the main street and the parking lot behind them.  Surrounded by buildings on three sides, the space was sheltered from the wind and even though it was relatively early in the season, people were out in force to socialize, eat, shop and listen to music.

I picked up Rabbit from school and we drove straight over to the Farmer’s Market.  She was so excited, but then her shoulders sagged.  The “Lumpia Lady” was not in her usual spot, selling Filipino lumpia, eggrolls, pancit and other treats.  She was a favorite destination for Rabbit and me – every time we went to the Market together, we’d get our vegetables and eggs, and then stop for a lumpia (Filipino eggroll, for lack of a better description). 

I calmed Rabbit down and explained that it was still early in the season, and there was plenty more to look at.  We stopped at a stand where they were making quesadillas from organic sharp white cheddar from the University’s dairy store, to promote the cheese becoming available for sale later this week.  Rabbit ate a piece, and then the lady started telling me that cheese made from the milk of grass-fed cattle is less likely to trigger side effects in people who are lactose intolerant.  Say cheese!  I ate some, and it was absolutely sensational. 

We found our favorite jam and jelly stand, and I forked over an obscene amount of money for a tiny jar of red plum jam.  The man was offering samples of a new product he and his wife started making last summer: dehydrated seasoned tomato slices.  Not sundried tomatoes; these were paper thin slices of tomato that were seasoned and dried.  “I don’t care for tomatoes,” I explained, shaking my head.  “I like tomato sauce, juice, salsa…I just can’t eat straight tomato.”  He grinned:  “Try it,” he encouraged me.  “I’m not a big tomato fan myself.”

I took a piece and tried it.  “Oh my God,” I said, “This is a revelation!”  He started laughing, and I bought a bag.  I can’t even describe the taste and texture, except to say that the taste is bright and intense and the texture is perfect.

Turning around, Rabbit grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down.  “The Lumpia Lady!” she pointed.  Sure enough, at the back of the crowd of vendors was our friend from the Phillipines.  She waved us over.  I told her how Rabbit and I had been looking forward to this since last fall, and she laughed.  We visited, and I told her about making pancit the other night.  “Oh! What did you use?  Chicken or pork?”  She listened to my account of the pancit-making and shook her head sadly when I told her I had used packaged coleslaw mix instead of shredding my own fresh cabbage, because the taste was almost nil.   She laughed about the noodles.  “Next time, you can break them in half.  And get some lime and squeeze it over the pancit when you get ready to eat it.”  She gave me her card.  “Call me next time you are going to be at the Farmer’s Market downtown and I will make you some pancit.”

We wandered over to another stand, where an older guy was selling honey in little plastic bears.  Local honey around here is so good, and we had just run out at home.  While we were chatting, a waitress from a nearby restaurant wandered through the crowd offering samples.  “Sweet potato quesadillas from Pepe’s” she called out, and people ran over to try it.  I snagged a bite and gave some to Rabbit, who grinned from ear to ear.  It was good. 

At the next stand, we got Rabbit a giant cookie, and watched some college-aged girls kneading out dough while an older lady gave them pointers.  They were making kolaches, the Czech pastry that is so popular around here.  It looks like a danish, with a hollow in the center filled up wtih poppy seed filling, prune filling, or filling made from fruits such as cherry, apricot or strawberry.  People around here jealously guard their kolache recipes, but everyone in my family knows my mom made the best kolaches ever.  Even though she wasn’t Czech, but German.  An older lady and I started talking about breadmaking, and she observed that the old German and Czech women would make the dough and form it into a ball, and just before putting it into the bowl to rise, they would slap the doughball several times.  “They called it ‘spanking the baby’,” she said.  I started laughing, because my mom did it, and I do that to bread dough, too. 

The sun was out and Rabbit and I sat on a curb divider by a little tree and ate our lumpia while listening to a girl and her mother play guitar and sing freshly-written songs.  The girl was high-school aged, with a ponytail and a scrubbed face, and her mom wore Birkenstocks and jeans.  Rabbit watched, and sighed happily.

Afterward, we went around the corner and upstairs to Pepe’s to see about more of those sweet potato quesadillas.  It was an eclectic little joint, with brick walls, mismatched tables, the windows open and a little counter where a college girl took orders and Pepe shouted greetings to people while cooking his vegetarian specialties.  There were only four entrees on the chalkboard menu, since he cooks from what is locally available and rotates the meals.  I was tempted to try one of the dishes with asparagus in it, but since Rabbit and I were sharing, I got the sweet potato quesadillas and some chips and salsa.

Rabbit was thrilled to have half of a can of Pepsi to drink, an unheard of treat for her.  She took a chip and set off to look at the plants and knicknacks in the restaurant.  When our quesadillas arrived, she dipped them in sour cream and ate blissfully.  They were out of this world – if you are ever in town, go the Havelock neighborhood and Pepe’s is upstairs over another business (I don’t remember which one).  Everything is vegetarian, but don’t let that slow you down. 

When we got home, Rabbit ate her giant M&M cookie, and now she’s in a prone position on the recliner here in my office while I write.  She’s sucking her thumb and her eyes are drifting closed. 

Just the two of us, in the windy outdoors, enjoying our town and people and each other.  Farmer’s Market day is a little slice of heaven.

Oct 26 2009

The Luckiest Worm Ever

My daughter LOVES worms.  She thinks they are adorable, and when PC digs one up in the yard, Rabbit has to carry it off and find it a new home.  Last summer, she carried a worm all over the back yard and put it on the swing, pushed it gently for a while, and then carried it down the slide.  She talked to it, and then later, when it was supper time, she threw it to a bird that promptly gobbled it up.

After the bird ate the worm, Rabbit had some remorse, but only to the extent that “I didn’t get to tell it goodbye!”

Recently, she’s been entrusted with a small garden trowel and she likes to go out and dig up worms on her own.  We have told her that as long as she stays in certain parts of the yard and doesn’t dig up any of our plants, she’s free to dig whatever she likes, provided she puts the dirt back when she’s done.

Today, the first really decent day in a long time, she went outside and got her trowel.  She found a worm.  And she decided, with the impending onset of winter, that she would make a beautiful little dwelling for this worm, in which to ride out the winter.

First of all, dirt needed to be involved.  She packed wet dirt around the worm, shaping it into a disc roughly the size of a hamburger patty.  She put it in the center of the patio, atop two green birch leaves.  As decoration, she found a tiny sprouting oak in the yard and pulled it up, inserting into the center of the worm ball.

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Next, she put up a decorative barrier around the perimeter, to keep away anyone or anything that might harm the worm.  This was accomplished beautifully with the use of an old hula hoop.

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A few flower petals next to the worm’s house is a nice touch, as well as four acorns pressed into the top.  Inside the hula hoop, we see her brief written tribute to the worm.

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Not quite fancy enough?  We’ll fix that, she decided. 

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Apparently, even worms need public art near their residential areas in order to thrive.  Either that or Rabbit felt that “love” and “Sweet heart fancy” with filagrees and loops surrounding them were a nice graffiti to give her worm the impression that he or she is living in a gentrified circle surrounded by urban scrawl.

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Sadly, the worm has succumbed to the fate of any upwardly mobile being obsessed with status, and ended up in a Gated Community.  Rabbit’s stern warning reminds us that there are the “haves” and then, there are the “have-nots.”

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“Dot [don't] cros this lin [line] inlas [unless] you need tdoo [to do] someding [something].” *

*Phonetic spelling is much more effective when you don’t have a head cold. 

No matter what, this is the luckiest worm in the world (or unluckiest, depending on your point of view).

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Oct 22 2009

In Which I Say Shit Several Times

I came dangerously close to another Omnivore’s Dilemma situation this week.  Barely escaped, in fact. 

Several months ago, I threw in the towel just a chapter away from the finish line while reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  The book was so wordy, so worthy, so friggin’ important…I felt like a real scab just admitting that while it was all those things, it was also a tedious pain in the ass.

A similar scenario happened last month, when I put down my paperback copy of Percival Everett’s I Am Not Sidney Poitier.  I was only about 80 pages in, and it was like when you politely eat something that twenty other people have raved about, how good it is, how great it smells, how brilliant the chef is….and you eat that first bite and think hrrmmm I’ve never tasted this kind of blend of flavors before, and then you think of cooking shows and how this must be how a palate is developed, kind of like a callous….then you start thinking maybe there’s something wrong with your tastebuds.  Then you realize that, no, it’s not your taste buds.  This food tastes like.  like… like shit.

So.

It was with trepidation that I set out last week to read American Pastoral by Philip Roth.  I’d been reading some lists of great books, great authors, other friends’ recommendations and was chagrined to find that I’d never read any of Roth’s work.  I figured that just as I did with reading Larry McMurtry, I would start with the book that won the author the Pulitzer, to avoid a misstep that would land me in one of his lesser works. 

I got through the first chapter, but I was starting to have that nagging feeling again.  The going was slow with this book.  Oh, he’s a good writer.  But I was becoming impatient.  Where the hell was this story going, and why was he writing down all the stuff he was supposed to be showing me?  Seriously, it was like he was making a list of the character’s emotions instead of describing a gesture or glance that would convey it to me.  And no, I don’t have specific examples because I’m too tired and discouraged to trudge into the other room to get the damn book

And I’m cussing now. So you know it isn’t good.

So I’m reading about Seymour “Swede” Levov as described by his ersatz biographer, Roth’s ubiquitous recurring narrator Nathan Zuckerman.  Swede was Zuckerman’s boyhood hero, and after Swede dies, Zuckerman falls into a reverie about the man’s life and failures.  At some point in this reverie, which I believe may have happened during Zuckerman’s high school reunion but I’m not sure because at this point I’m skipping paragraphs and perhaps entire pages…at some point, he’s voicing a memory of Levov’s that is either speculation or some sort of messed up sudden shift in the book’s point of view, but the scene is Levov driving home from the beach with his daughter, who is about eleven. 

The daughter lets her bathing suit strap fall off her shoulder and leans into her father and asks him to kiss her the way he kisses her mother…and after a (far too) brief moral dilemma, he COMPLIES.  He kisses her on the mouth.

And that, my friends, is where I snapped the book shut last night and threw back the covers on the bed. 

I marched over to the dresser and slapped the book on top of it, and grabbed a can of Febreeze and slammed it on top of the book.  And then slapped my hands together to get the residual book ickiness off, and gave in to a full-on, complete body skeeve.

My husband looked up.  “What’s wrong?”

I glared at him.  “That f***ing BOOK!”

“What book?”

I told him.  He shrugged and went back to his Newsweek magazine.

I went into the living room and found my copy of Girl With a Pearl Earring and climbed into bed with it. 

“I thought you’d already read that one,” he said.

“Palate cleanser,” I replied. 

Now if you are going to tell me I should have given the book another chance, save your breath.  Life’s too short to spoon shit into your mouth just because ten other people tell you it tastes great.  It doesn’t taste great to me.  And don’t roll your eyes and call me provincial because I couldn’t choke my way through that book.  I saw The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover when it came out and I didn’t get up and leave.  I read Lolita and saw the brilliance of it, even though it was inherently disgusting, because the author had a sense of humor and irony. 

But if this is what reading Philip Roth is like, then I’ll just have to put down my napkin and get up from the table.  Three plates of shit is enough for one year, thank you.

Jul 16 2009

Good Things To Eat

Last week, I made chicken and egg drop soup.  It was a day where I just needed to unwind and cook some comfort food, and it was GREAT.

A couple of days before, I made the chicken stock.  I used PC’s Grandmas old turquoise Club aluminum pot, and started off with olive oil, where I sauteed a whole yellow onion, chopped up.  I added the leafy top 1/4 of a bunch of celery, and let it cook, then added two cut up carrots, and then moved it all over to the side and put in three chicken leg quarters.

After they cooked for about five minutes, I added four or five cloves of peeled garlic, a bunch of thyme from the garden, salt, pepper, two bay leaves, and water to cover it all up.

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This pot is so old; PC’s Grandma cooked spaghetti in it, soup, chili….she got the cookware back in the late 1950′s, I think.  I even have the pamphlet that came with it.  I love it because it’s something she used that I can keep using, and think of her every time.

I brought the stock up to a boil and then reduced it, adding a tablespoon of cider vinegar (according to my mother, the vinegar draws the calcium out of the chicken bones to enrich the stock).  I let it simmer on low for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, I made a peanut butter and chokecherry jam sandwich.

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Man. I am an old lady.  Look at the retro bread box I use.  I love that thing, with the cutting board in the fold-down door. That was a good sandwich, too.

After a couple of hours, I took the chicken out of the broth and let it cool. I strained out the vegetables, and put the stock in a container.  I removed the skin from the chicken, pulled it from the bones, threw out the gristle and bones, and shredded the chicken into the container where I had put the stock.

A couple of days later, I removed the fat layer from the top of the cold container.  In the original soup pot, I diced carrots and sauteed them in a little olive oil and butter til they were all roasty.  Then I added the chicken and the stock.  I brought it to a boil and added finely chopped parsley, a little thickener, and then made the egg drops.

All you do is find a recipe for noodle dough and make it.  Don’t knead it too much and make sure it isn’t too floury and stiff.  Take the dough and instead of rolling it out for noodles, just get a little bit (about the size of the end of your pinkie) onto the end of a spoon.  Take another spoon, and scrape the dough off into the simmering soup.  Repeat until you’ve used up all the noodle dough. 

Simmer for about ten minutes.  At the end, taste and adjust for seasoning.  Add a tablespoon of butter (almost always my finishing touch to a pot of soup). 

Serve immediately, with bread and butter.

Jan 11 2009

Five Question Interview – Can I Interview YOU?

The brilliant, thoughtful, well-traveled and creative julochka from the blog moments of perfect clarity has offered me five interview questions to answer, as part of an interview meme spreading throughout Blogsville.  Here are her questions, and my answers.

1.  how can you be a vegetarian when you live in the heartland? (you should invent vegetarian bacon and get rich, by the way.)

First off, I have not been a vegetarian for very long; less than three months now.   The reason I decided to try it goes back to a heart attack scare back in October, which turned out to be a panic attack and massive anxiety, and an admonition from my doctor that I needed to take better care of myself, nutritionally, physically, and spiritually. 

I tried a vegan diet as an experiment as a tribute to a young couple who were clients, whose recommendations to at least try it as a challenge to see how much better I felt just struck me at the right time as something I could do for one week, for crying out loud.  They bought me some vegan basics, and within a few days, I just noticed a difference not only in how I felt physically, but how much better I felt about myself for being able to stick to something.

It’s not always easy to eat in a group setting (an office party, for example) when everything has cheese on it or meat…but the physical benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

My grandfathers on both sides were hog farmers, and I love bacon and pork.  But by the age of 40, I figure I’ve eaten my share and it is time to cut back.  Fortunately  in my city, we have some organic food stores, and a variety of grocery places that carry great vegan alternatives.  I don’t try to force it on anyone, and I don’t carry it to the extremes–for instance, I eat honey (some vegans don’t), I have some leather shoes, I will occasionally have an egg.  I try to eat healthy, and if I allow myself to fall off the wagon, I just watch the wagon disappear into the sunset, and will never catch up. 

At my age, and with my lack of willpower, I just find that right now, this is the food system that works best for me.  I have no problem with others eating meat, and I don’t know if this will be a lifelong thing, but I figure I’ll give it a while to see how it feels for me over time.  If I feel deprived down the line, I’ll make a change. 

2.  tell us about your vintage tupperware collection (with pictures, please) and how you came to acquire it.

When I was a kid, my mom had some pieces of Tupperware, and I got nostalgic for it, especially the giant green bowl she used to raise bread dough.  My friend Susan sent me a replica of that bowl about five years ago and I just cried.  Since then, I’ve colllected a few pieces here and there, and mostly through garage sales, thrift stores, and then eBay.  The bulk of the collection happened when I celebrated my 40th birthday last summer, and guests were asked to bring kitschy retro party food in Tupperware containers.  The resulting stash is pictured below.  There are more pieces that joined the collection; this was just what I got at the party!

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3.  one of the first of your blog posts that i read was about the 70s kitsch food party you had. have you had (or do you plan to have) other clever theme parties?  if so, what was/will be the theme?
I haven’t really thought about it!  The picture above is from that party.  I think it would be fun to have another retro-kitsch party that doesn’t require Tupperware, but would require that everyone bring the absolute most tacky nicknack they have found at a garage sale.  I think it would also be fun to have a party where we invade someone’s house (like four or five people) and cook a meal for everyone from stuff in that person’s kitchen (ala that old show “Doorknock Dinners.)  The main thing I have wanted to do for a while is to get people together to do an “Improv Everywhere” type of stunt.  If you don’t know about Improv Everywhere, you need to check them out.
 4.  being #11 in such a big family surely meant lots of hand-me-downs. when did you first get clothes that were your own first? :-)

Back when I was 10 or 11, we went on a family trip to visit my parents’ home towns, and then went to the city where my brother lived.  My mom gave my sister in law money to take my younger sister and me shopping, and we each go new school outfits.  We also got, each of us two girls, a package of new underwear, seven pairs apiece.  I remember they were called “Wundies.”  My mom admonished us to change our underwear every day, and my sister squirmed in embarrassment.  We may have had some new clothese before that, but I don’t remember what they might have been.  There were a lot of Catholic Ladies Rummage Sales where we got second-hand clothes.  Even now, I buy a lot of my clothes on consingment.  Except underwear.  I have to draw the line somewhere.

5.  one of your most brilliantly hilarious posts was the one about your hairstyles over the years. what do you plan to do next?

I don’t know–I honestly didn’t know when I wrote it that it would be such a hit.   I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was a one-off, a post that basically wrote itself with the pictures as a guide.  I guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out!

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * *  *

And now a recap of the instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. 
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Jan 1 2009

Seriously, Too Much Television

I spent much of the last two days watching crap I had recorded on TiVo.  Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations showed some African bushmen roasting what looked like sausage but which turned out to be “al dente inverted cow anus.”  I turned to another station showing sex change operations, and they were in the process of (and thank God it was blurred out) peeling back the skin from, removing, and then inverting what used to be an appendage on a man who was being transformed into a very unfortunate-looking woman. 

Recoiling in horror, I flipped to that old standby, Discovery Health (which has prosaic program names like “The Woman With Giant Legs” or “The 250 Pound Tumor” or, perhaps, “Don’t Watch This:  It is An Inverted Cow Anus”).  This program was about a 30-inch tall 20-year-old woman who, with her 6’4″ boyfriend, had a baby.  They were a charming couple, living with her parents, caring for their baby, trying to adapt a car so she could drive, and then going bowling.  She would bowl a gutterball, and then pipe up “I HATE this game! Drag me, baby!”   At which time the boyfriend would lean down and grab her upstretched arm and drag her, seated, across the polished wood of the bowling alley floor back to their table. 

Every channel had some sort of freak show on, and I finally just turned it off.  I figure that in the last year, the time we wasted watching television could have been used to read probably 50 books, or write at least one (a rough draft anyway).  We could have earned extra money at a part-time job, or exercised, or cooked instead of buying fast food.  We could have gone to church services, volunteered, cleaned house or taken a class at the local community college. 

Not that we would automatically do all of those things, but I look back at last year, when we were TV-free for several months, and recall how much more peaceful things were around here, especially with Rabbit.  Her behavior and concentration were better.  She was happier.  She didn’t throw tantrums.  Nowadays, her attitude is a little snarky, her room is a mess, she backtalks occasionally, and pouts or fusses about nearly every thing we tell her to do.   All of us are a little grumpy and snappy with each other, and it’s usually when the TV is on. 

So.

At the end of January, we’re going to suspend our DirecTV.  We’ll keep our Blockbuster movie pass so we can get DVDs by mail, and we can catch “The Office” and “The Daily Show” online.  Otherwise, we’re getting trash TV, weird documentaries, “reality” television, commercials and the incessant bombardment of unrealistic body images out of our house.  We’ve done it before, and it was worth it. 

Why not right away?  Part of it is because I don’t want to miss the auditions on “American Idol.”  The other part is so that we can watch the Inauguration, and TiVo as many movies and shows as we can before pulling the plug.  We’re not stupid–we want to stockpile a little entertainment to hold us over until it’s nice outside again. 

Eating a vegan diet?  Getting rid of commercial television?  What next?

I promise, I’ll keep shaving my legs and grooming my eyebrows.

Dec 31 2008

Phoning It In With Three F’s

AND THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS THE POST THAT OFFICIALLY MEANS I KEPT MY 2008 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION TO POST SOMETHING ON THIS BLOG EVERY DAY. 

IT TOOK ME UNTIL I WAS 40, BUT I FINALLY KEPT A RESOLUTION FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR.

Facelift
 
For those of you who subscribe to this blog on a reader feed, you may not have noticed that the blog has had a tiny little facelift.  Just a little botox, took out some blog blemishes, enhanced the feed, etc.  Same header, just a different wordpress theme–a lot like the old one, but with better differentiation to the links, different font, that kind of thing.  And it is SO MUCH EASIER to change themes in WordPress than it was 6 months ago when I was on Blogger, it’s amazing. 
 
Food
 
I’m hungry.  We are planning to eat healthier in ’09, which I started back in November.  And even though I haven’t locked myself in on the vegan wagon, I haven’t fallen completely off of it either.  Now that we’re in our 40′s, we’re realizing that there aren’t a lot of “do-overs” with health, and we’ve noticed that eating healthier makes us feel better, and we’ve also learned that it’s not all nuts and twigs and leaves.  Even PC has admitted that it would probably help him to change his diet, and while he’ll never go vegan, he’s tasted some of what I have prepared and liked it, and that’s a step in the right direction. 
 
I want to get more into the slow food philosophy.  When we rush to throw something together, it’s usually unhealthy and just tastes like crap.  And it doesn’t have to be expensive or complex–food cooked with love, surrounded by family who are getting along, in a home we love?  Why wouldn’t we eat like that every night we possibly could?  Last night, standing there in front of the griddle, flipping over flatbread while PC emptied the dishwasher and Rabbit put plates on the table, it felt like the center of the universe and for that window of time, I was so content I felt like my bones had melted.  It was pure magic.
 
Friends
 
Brace yourself–I’m going to try to be in better touch.  If you are a blog friend and live within a few hours of me, I would love to meet you sometime.  I doubt I will make it to BlogHer, but it would be nice to have a midwest version for us po’ folk!

Finally, A Word (or more) To The Past Year

So long 2008!  Now that you’re on your way out, I feel it’s safe to tell you I dislike you greatly.  You stuck around too long like a lonely party guest, and it’s time for you to go home so the rest of us can open the champagne and celebrate.  Out with the old, you piece of crap year, and welcome 2009!  Hey ’08, don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.  Adios sucker!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Aug 14 2008

Fuchsia Sunshine and Greek Salad

As requested, I’m posting a photo of the jelly I got yesterday at the Farmer’s Market.  I did a little wikipedia research on chokecherries (apparently not to be confused with chokeberries) and learned that they are related to black cherries; “astringent” was the adjective used to describe their flavor. 

Well-sweetened, they are amazing; a bright and wild flavor that I haven’t encountered in any other fruit.  According to Wikipedia, the leaves of the chokecherry can be poisonous to horses, as they release cyanide when they wilt.  But I still love the jelly.
 
*** GREEK SALAD***
This evening, I took several of the vegetables I got yesterday at the Farmer’s Market, and used them to make our favorite salad, to take to a pot-luck picnic for Rabbit’s preschool.  The nice thing about this salad is that it is an oil and vinegar based dressing, perfect for picnics.  That, and the kalamata olives, which are enough like steak to add a little oomph to the salad.
 
To make the salad, first I peeled two cucumbers.  Then, I made ridges along the edge by running a fork along the length of the cucumber, scoring lines in stripes all around it. 
 
 
Then I sliced them on the mandoline slicer, which is just about my favorite thing in the kitchen besides my KitchenAid mixer.  After that, I very thinly sliced those little red onions I got yesterday, and mixed them with the cucumber slices. 
 
 
Of course, I had to mix the salad in a Tupperware bowl, on the formica-topped counter, next to my old metal breadbox with the breadboard in the door.  Dang.  I am 40.

After the onions, I cut up the grape and cherry tomatoes; purple ones, orange ones, yellow pear-shaped ones, red ones.  I can’t really eat a raw tomato without gagging, but these looked so good, I was tempted to try one.  

 
I added them to the bowl, and then got out the olives. 
 
I am not a huge fan of olives, except Kalamata olives.  Whenever I open a jar of them, I breathe in that brine, with the vinegar and wine fragrance, and then cutting up the olives, I’m always a little surprised to think there’s no protein in them, they’re so much like little steaks.  I used about 25 in the salad, cut in 2-4 pieces each.  I was so excited to find Mezzetta had pitted kalamata olives the last time I went to the store, I bought 3 jars.   
 
 
After the olives, I took a block of tomato and basil feta cheese and broke it in half, and crumbled it on top of the salad. 
 
 
Then I took a picture, and now my camera smells like feta cheese.  
 
After the feta, I mixed up the dressing.  I used two tablespoons of Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning, 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, and 1/4 cup olive oil.  I don’t know if those proportions are a classic vinaigrette, but I really don’t care, either. 
 
 
And yes, this particular bottle of olive oil is the Target brand.  Contract with me to sell your house or represent you as your Realtor so I will earn a commission check, and then I can afford the schmancy-fancy olive oil.  The vinegar?  Grocery store brand. 
 
After I mixed up the dressing, I poured it over the ingredients in the bowl, and tossed everything so it was coated.  It has a peppery, vinegary, cucumber-y aroma, with the pungent feta in the background.  It will marinate overnight and all the juice from the veggies will mix with the dressing.  It tastes incredible.
 

If there’s any salad left over (and there very seldom is), I will put it in the food processor and just pulse it a couple of times until it’s of a chunky salsa consistency.  We eat it on lime tortilla chips or toasted pita triangles, and call it “greek-o de gallo.”