Lettuce

This is a great dish to serve at an informal lunch or dinner party. Set out all the ingredients, and let your guests assemble their own bundles. Store-bought roasted duck or chicken can be used; skip step 2.

Salade niçoise is traditionally a composition of tender seasonal lettuces, green beans, baby potatoes, olives, and the best-quality tuna packed in olive oil. This version features tuna steaks grilled perfectly, then broken into chunks. You can substitute your favorite seasonal vegetables if you choose. This salad should not be chilled.

Of all main-course salads, the Niçoise is my all-time favorite, with its fresh butter-lettuce foundation; its carefully cooked, beautifully green green beans; its colorful contrast of halved hard-boiled eggs, ripe red tomatoes, and black olives; all fortified by chunks of tunafish and freshly opened anchovies. It’s a perfect luncheon dish, to my mind, winter, summer, spring, and fall—an inspired combination that pleases everyone.

No matter how much you like to cook, everyone gets stuck in a rut. When you find yourself making the same old things, it’s time to cook out of your comfort zone. For us, this means a trip to any international market where one step inside we remember how much there still is to learn. The good news is that walking the aisles of the unfamiliar unlocks the secrets to many of the ingredients in our favorite restaurant dishes. The greens in the produce section alone will keep us busy for a year. We can’t shop when we’re hungry, so first we eat. Thankfully, the Vietnamese noodle bowls right next door energize and inspire our international shopping trips. Vietnamese noodle bowls are filled with contradictions in complete agreement—hot and cold, crunchy and soft, sweet and sour, rich and light. The bowls of warm thin noodles, cool leafy lettuce, bean sprouts, and herbs topped with any meat or seafood you like are perfect for leftover cheater meat. The sweet/salty/spicy dressing may appear way too complex for home cooking. It’s not. The international market has everything you need. Cooking out of your comfort zone will help you dissect the components and flavors of unfamiliar foods. Even if cooking Vietnamese at home sounds daunting, give this a try with leftover cheater meat just for the fun of better understanding how opposites get along.

Since R. B. has expanded his blade assortment beyond an ax, a maul, and a cleaver to include a few kitchen knives, he’s more than happy to wield the Santoku for diced salad vegetables. This kitchen task is best suited for the detail oriented. Around here, that would be R. B., whose T-shirt collection is always impeccably folded, stacked, and arranged by hobby. Instead of limp baby weeds, we vote for a crisp head of chilled iceberg lettuce that cuts beautifully into bite-size pieces for serving with barbecue.

I love dishes with catchy retro names. The Green Goddess salad was invented in the 1920s by the chef of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, who made it in honor of British actor George Arliss. The actor was a guest at the hotel while starring in a local production of William Archer’s The Green Goddess. The basic components of this classic California dressing are anchovies, mayonnaise, garlic, tarragon, parsley, and chives. I add watercress to the puréed herbs, which turns the dressing a deep emerald green and adds a clean, peppery flavor. Thick and rich, the dressing coats the romaine leaves the same way a Caesar salad dressing does. Once you have this dressing in your repertoire, you’ll find yourself using it for all sorts of things. Try a dollop over grilled fish, or spread it on bread instead of mayonnaise when making a sandwich.