Red Lettuces with Blue Cheese, Red Grapefruit, and Sunflower Sprouts

Preparation

1. Step 1

   Gently tear a few small heads of mixed reddish lettuces into bite-size pieces and place them in the bowl of a salad spinner. (I was unconsciously tortured for years by a salad spinner I got in college until my mother-in-law kindly put me out of my misery with a large Oxo. It even has a brake if you are worried your greens might get too dry.) Cover the leaves with room-temperature water—or even slightly warm if the lettuces are a little wilted or tired—and allow them to soak for 10 minutes before lifting them out of their bath and spinning them dry.

   Step 2

   Using a small, sharp knife, peel a large red grapefruit by carefully slicing the skin away from the fruit, top and bottom first. Then, placing the grapefruit on one of the stable cut ends, slice away the remaining peel, top to bottom, around the sides, leaving just a bit of fruit on the skin in order to completely remove the pith. Hold the peeled fruit over a small bowl, and with a sharp paring knife, carefully remove the segments by slicing along the edge of each crescent-shaped section of fruit as close to the membrane as possible, allowing each piece of pith-free fruit to drop into the bowl.

   Step 3

   Squeeze a little lemon juice into a large wooden salad bowl, catching any seeds in your hand. Tip in the accumulated grapefruit juice and add a splash of good-quality white wine vinegar, a big pinch of salt, and a little pinch of sugar. With a fork, whisk in olive oil—about twice as much as the combined vinegar and citrus juices. Add a few grinds of black pepper, and toss with the lettuces. Check the seasoning. Lay the grapefruit sections and trimmed sunflower sprouts on top, along with some chunks of an assertive blue cheese like Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont or Rogue River Blue from Oregon.