Let us have lettuce

RACOOL, freerangestock.com

Everyone is familiar with lettuce on a burger, but there are many other ways to enjoy this vegetable.

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Here I go again, starting off with one of those “when I was growing up” stories. I guess the older we get, and the more days we have in the past, we tend to do that more often.

Anyway, dinner traditions in my family seemed to have an unwritten and unspoken rule: thou shalt serve French or Italian bread and a green salad every night. My mom has been widowed twice and also outlived a gentleman friend who recently passed away, and even now, she feels somewhat guilty if she doesn’t offer bread and salad at every dinner meal. She will be 95 near the end of August, so I suppose that the salad tradition is a lifelong one.

The practice isn’t just with my mom, though; my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and my sister were or are still loyal to that rule. I had to be the black sheep of the family and break tradition, because to be honest, I don’t always feel like eating salad or taking the time to prepare one. Same with bread; I don’t feel a desire to eat bread every day. (Well, garlic bread toasted on a grill is an exception.)