California Salads

One of the many delicious food revelations during our road trip through Marin County and Napa Valley were the salads. From place to place, we ate salads as part of every meal we were served, and together they formed a master class in salad making. Both Tim and I couldn’t get enough of them (meaning these were not girly-girl bowls of frisee). It didn’t hurt that we were traveling during the late spring, when there is an abundance of asparagus, peas, beans, carrots, leeks, radishes, and broccoli (or rather a broccoli from Bolinas that resembled more broccolini). The deluxe beauty of a salad above was from Redd Wood restaurant in Yountville. It contained shaved spring vegetables with green goddess dressing and the plumpest, most beautiful peas. What I learned from this salad was that fresh peas should be served with their pods