Salad Quotes

Of course, if I had misbehaved that day, my dinner was a salad made entirely out of iceberg lettuce, with water on top instead of dressing. It was like cabbage soup without the dignity. ~ Jarod Kintz

I like to cook simple things, like vegetable egg-white omelets; roast chicken; sauteed chicken breast with curry powder; and Greek salad. Just things that are fresh and healthy and fast and easy, because I have such a crazy schedule. ~ Sasha Cohen

ghastly girl. Might as well move in. I don't know why Wade stands for it, frankly. But, well, he has other fish to fry..." He took another mouthful of salad. "Oh? ~ C.A. Larmer

I want to focus on my salad. ~ Martha Stewart

Call it 'supper'. When you start calling it 'dinner' you raise people's expectations. They'll think there's going to be salad and cloth napkins. If you call it supper no one will bat an eye if you just put out a casserole. Remember the nice one I used to make you kids with the noodles and the tunafish?" -- Celeste Haxton, Thea Gallas's mother ~ Kristen Panzer

Knowing me is easy. You can still twist your hair and feel silly. Look up the word tacky and have a salad. But when we're together you pull bread apart with your fingers into bites sometimes so small I gotta remind you, Peach, it is okay to be hungry. ~ Buddy Wakefield

You don't really mean that about having everyone leave you alone," she said sweetly. "You seem like such a friendly and outgoing guy. I'll make sure to mention how great you are to everyone over the next couple of days. Before you know it, the whole street will be knocking on your door and introducing themselves. It won't be a month before you're hosting the neighborhood barbecue. You'll also be picking up prescriptions, mowing lawns and eating macaroni salad with every meal so you won't hurt their feelings." She batted her eyelashes at him as he seemed to pale before her eyes. "Welcome to the neighborhood. ~ Liliana Hart

Who puts strawberries in a salad? Seriously, is this a thing now? Is it a thing I don't know about? Is it an American thing? It can be. It's freaking me out. ~ James Corden

FACT 450: Ecstasy is often used in conjunction with other drugs such as marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, ketamine, and other drugs, making it even more dangerous.

Drugs: they're not a salad bar. ~ Cary McNeal

First of all, the carbohydrates restricted are sugar, refined flour, and starchy vegetables, not the green leafy vegetables, so there should still be significant fiber in the diet, although it's not actually necessary. In fact, a likely scenario is that you'll eat more green vegetables when you're carb-restricting than not, because you're likely to substitute more green leafy vegetables and salads for the starchy vegetables, pasta, and bread that you're not eating. A restaurant meal might be a dish of meat, fish, or fowl with green vegetables or salad substituted for the potatoes (or rice or pasta or the hamburger bun). ~ Gary Taubes

We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables - the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers - to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences. ~ Jane Elliot

I take apart restaurant menus everywhere I go. I kind of tick off a lot of chefs in restaurants because I'll say, 'You can keep all of the sauce, keep all of that garbage - just give me that piece of fish. Forget the salad dressing, I don't need all of that extra stuff. Just give it to me straight up, and I'll eat it.' ~ Montel Williams

Can't make chicken salad out of chicken noodle ~ Mike Ditka

Call it crazy, or just chicken salad. ~ Sarah Dessen

I went along doing the one-salad-a-night routine for a year. And I remember feeling so tired and depressed and irritable. I had no personal life. I was always flying someplace - weekends, holidays, vacations. Dinners at night were no fun because I couldn't eat. ~ Carol Alt

The first gathering of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby - how could anything so beautiful be mine? ~ Alice B. Toklas

Part of what interests me is the impulse to dismiss and how often it slides into the very incoherence or hysteria of which women are routinely accused. It would be nice if, say, Rush Limbaugh, who called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" for testifying to Democrats in Congress about the need to fund birth control and who apparently completely failed to comprehend how birth control works - Limbaugh the word-salad king, the factually challenged, the eternally riled - got called hysterical once in a while. ~ Rebecca Solnit

I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad. ~ Michael Moore

My salad days
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then! ~ William Shakespeare

I made the mistake of snooping and reading the model's journal. We finished having medium-to-boring sex and I rifled through his things while he took a shower. I am pretty good at snooping around. It started in my own house, where I would go through every drawer and every pocket in my parents' room. Luckily, I didn't find much at home except for some well-worn copies of Playboy that seem positively charming compared to the up-close butt fisting that pops up on my computer these days when I am trying to order salad tongs from Target. I honed my snooping skills when I babysat. It was then that I saw my first diaphragm, laxatives, and stacks of cash in an underwear drawer. I have basically ransacked every house I have been allowed into. My snooping tendencies have now abated somewhat, but I still have to fight the urge to immediately go through people's shit. I am not proud of this and I realize that by admitting this I am limiting future opportunities to be a houseguest. ~ Amy Poehler

Love, like a chicken salad or restaurant hash, must be taken with blind faith or it loses its flavor. ~ Helen Rowland

Chickpeas are one of my favourite things to serve with chorizo or lamb meatballs; they also work brilliantly as the quiet partner in a vibrant alphonso mango salad. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. ~ Elizabeth Berg

Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'
a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best
a whole greater than the sum of it's parts. ~ Alan Brennert

Kale is my best friend. I eat kale salad. I put kale in my smoothies, kale in my soup. Kale, kale, kale! I feel like Popeye. I love it. I definitely need variety or I get super bored, so I have to mix it up with different sauces and tahini or whatever. ~ Alanis Morissette

Day to day, I love eating soup and salad; lots of stews, fish, chicken, meat and veg. I eat everything, and I don't have any fads. ~ Jerry Hall

the ingredients for lunch: ciabatta bread, couscous salad with apricots, ham, and a goat's cheese flan, ~ Marcia Willett

[The] dinner party is a true proclamation of the abundance of being -- a rebuke to the thrifty little idolatries by which we lose sight of the lavish hand that made us. It is precisely because no one needs soup fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever. The unnecessary is the taproot of our being and the last key to the door of delight. Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls, the formal dinner...the true convivium -- the long Session that brings us nearly home. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

In Manhattan, marriage is a trend. Couples kiss over their arugula and radicchio salads. They fondle each other's genitals while devouring their pasta puttanesca. By the time the tiramisu arrives, they've slid under the table. ~ Cynthia Heimel

She loves me. She must, because she left flowers in the fridge from her date. She knows how I love flower salad. ~ Jarod Kintz

Before that summer, I had many times heard long-winded Baptist preachers take ten minutes to pray over card tables of potato salad and fried chicken at church picnics, but the way those sweating, red-faced men sat around on stacked pallets of lumber gulping oysters taught me most of what I knew about simple gladness. ~ Mary Karr

I've said it before: equations are the devil's sentences. The worst one is that quadratic equation, an infernal salad of numbers, letters, and symbols. ~ Stephen Colbert

When is Tawny's birthday?" Cooper asked.
"In November."
"And yours was in January?"
Frowning at him, I didn't answer.
Cooper finally grinned at my irritation. "I did my homework on you. Hoped your birthday was coming up so I could do something big and romantic. You chicks love that crap."
"Oh, we really do," I said, smiling now as I ate my salad. "When's your birthday?"
"Beginning of December. I'm a Sag," he said, as if I should be impressed. "What will you give me for my birthday?"
"Probably something with me naked. Well, assuming I haven't grown bored of you by then."
Leaning back in his chair, Cooper smiled. "I like the way you say naked. Makes me think of you naked."
"Big shock."
"I really want to see that."
"Well, let's see how dinner goes first. ~ Bijou Hunter

When a fruit salad, a lover, or a jazz trio is just too imperfect for our tastes, we stop eating, kissing, and listening. But the law of large numbers suggests that when a measurement is too imperfect for our tastes, we should not stop measuring. Quite the opposite - we should measure again and again until niggling imperfections yield to the onslaught of data. ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor; but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy. ~ William Safire

Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce. ~ Terry Pratchett

I am nearly the worst role model for a healthy person. To me, a healthy person is someone in balance. Sometimes you eat hamburgers, sometimes salad; sometimes you move, sometimes you don't. I eat more healthily than unhealthily, but I do sometimes eat unhealthy food. ~ Magnus Scheving

You don't need meat at every meal," Riley offered, forking another bite of salad into his mouth and inwardly agreeing with Jack that it was certainly lacking something. Jack was quiet for all of ten seconds, and then he couldn't hold in his opinion one second more. "Are you really a Texan? I mean, really? Riley, if I have a headache, I'd put bacon around an aspirin before I take it. ~ R.J. Scott

What are you thinking about?" Jay asked as he plopped down next to her.
She blinked, wondering if she was wearing her frustration on her face. "Nothing," she lied, pushing her salad around her plate.
She wasn't sure why she didn't just tell him.
"Doesn't look like nothing," Jules interrupted from across the table.
Violet cast a quick glare at her friend for inconveniently pointing out the obvious.
"What?" Jay asked, nudging Violet with his shoulder. "Tell me."
Violet hesitated, suddenly embarrassed over her new insecurity. Yet, inside her head, she bitterly referred to Mike as "Jay's boyfriend."
Ironically, though, it was Mike who saved Violet from having to confess those very thoughts, when he slid into an open space on the other side of the table. "What'd I miss?" His lazy smile reached all the way into his tawny-colored eyes, and even the dimples on his cheek made a fleeting appearance.
Violet could see the draw for Chelsea; he was sort of stunning to look at.
So then what was Jay's excuse? She jokingly hoped it wasn't the adorable dimple too. ~ Kimberly Derting

If you like good ol' fashion Southern soul food then, yes, I am a good cook! My specialty is chicken dumplings and poke salad. ~ Dolly Parton

How tiring is residency? So tiring. When Jude and I went out to eat, I avoided ordering salad; I didn't have the energy to chew that much. ~ Frances Southwick, D.O

There are many things to admire about Japan but this is the one thing I love the most and probably the only time I eat breakfast. Fish, eggs, soup, salad, veggies; all in the tiniest bites. It's a full meal, but it's so refreshing. ~ David Chang

My favorite meal to make is seared ahi, and my wife does the most amazing pear salad. ~ Joel Parkinson

Ann Romney talking about middle class moms is like Chris Christie talking about a salad ~ Denis Leary

I start the day with oatmeal with vanilla almond milk. If I don't, I'm dying by noon and eating everything in sight. On-set, I avoid crap and pack soup and salad. I cook pork chops or turkey tacos for dinner. ~ Kaley Cuoco

True Friends are the bacon bits
In the salad bowl of life. How true
I read that and straight away,
My thoughts turned to you
And especially today on your 60th
These special wishes I send
Have a really wonderful birthday
My special "bacon flavored" friend ~ John Walter Bratton

I usually try to eat in my restaurants before I fly, as I'd rather sleep on the plane and just order a salad with cheese, maybe some ice cream. ~ Daniel Boulud

For meals, I'm big into quinoa or rocket salad with a protein like shrimp of chicken added to it. ~ Jessica Stroup

I was in a supermarket and I saw Paul Newman's face on salad dressing and spaghetti sauce ... I thought he was missing. ~ Bob Saget

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands. ~ George Gordon Byron

Sometimes I just said, 'I don't want tilapia anymore; I can't even deal with salad. I want M&M's and Ruffles.' ~ Sherri Shepherd

Intensely craving a salad of green papaya with bird chilies that tore your mouth apart, that burned your lips, set fire to your heart. ~ Kim Thuy

Branson ate his salad, and left the rest of his fish untouched, while Grace tucked into his steak and kidney pudding with relish. 'I read a while ago,' he told Branson, 'that the French drink more red wine than the English but live longer. The Japanese eat more fish than the English but drink less wine and live longer. The Germans eat more red meat than the English, and drink more beer and they live longer too. You know the moral of this story?
'No'
'It's not what you eat or drink - it's speaking English that kills you. ~ Peter James

Have a seat in a liberal restaurant, and you're assaulted with all sorts of rules and information. No substitutions. Everything organic. They'll tell you the name of the farm the lettuce comes from, the variety of tomato in the salad, and probably even the name of the hardworking chicken who donated the eggs. But they won't ask you how you want your steak. They won't ask you anything, actually. At liberal restaurants, they tell you what you're going to have. ~ Michael Gallagher

There are food stations around the room, each representing one of the main characters. The Black Widow station is all Russian themed, with a carved ice sculpture that delivers vodka into molded ice shot glasses, buckwheat blini with smoked salmon and caviar, borsht bite skewers, minipita sandwiches filled with grilled Russian sausages, onion salad, and a sour cream sauce.
The Captain America station is, naturally, all-American, with cheeseburger sliders, miniwaffles topped with a fried chicken tender and drizzled with Tabasco honey butter, paper cones of French fries, mini-Chicago hot dogs, a mac 'n' cheese bar, and pickled watermelon skewers. The Hulk station is all about duality and green. Green and white tortellini, one filled with cheese, the other with spicy sausage, skewered with artichoke hearts with a brilliant green pesto for dipping. Flatbreads cooked with olive oil and herbs and Parmesan, topped with an arugula salad in a lemon vinaigrette. Mini-espresso cups filled with hot sweet pea soup topped with cold sour cream and chervil.
And the dessert buffet is inspired by Loki, the villain of the piece, and Norse god of mischief. There are plenty of dessert options, many of the usual suspects, mini-creme brûlée, eight different cookies, small tarts. But here and there are mischievous and whimsical touches. Rice Krispies treats sprinkled with Pop Rocks for a shocking dining experience. One-bite brownies that have a molten chocolate center that explodes in the m ~ Stacey Ballis

I think I need to spend some time with safari but what arrests my attention are salient, sadomasochism, saccadic, and salad days. I think I will go learn more about coral only to learn a lot more about corollary and counterturn and coffin nail. I go from magnificence to means to marquee to maniac to distyle, ductile, hindsight, shell game, veronica, yardstick, ball field, magpie, variegated, and close shave. ~ Dara Wier

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of life. ~ Cyril Connolly

Her mind still worked, her feet still moved, she could walk, though only with the help of a walker, but walk she did, and she was a human being who knew for certainty that beans are best in salad and that old age is a terrible calamity. ~ Dubravka Ugresic

I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned the chapters with my tongue! Books by the dozen, the score and the billion. I carried so many home I was hunchbacked for years. Philosophy, art history, politics, social science, the poem, the essay, the grandiose play, you name 'em, I ate 'em. ~ Ray Bradbury

Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad. ~ Terry Pratchett

Her mom carefully selected her memories to reflect her established opinions, and it turned her mind into a bowl of lettuce she believed was a salad. ~ J. Ryan Stradal

A tuna steak and a salad? Seventy bucks. Welcome to Los Angeles. ~ Mark Zupan

Koolaid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish, and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes - goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. Macaroons are very Jewish - very Jewish cake. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is goyish. Lime soda is very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them. ~ Lenny Bruce

I chop 'em into salad and my name ain't Caesar. ~ Black Thought

THE ROMANS SALTED their greens, believing this to counteract the natural bitterness, which is the origin of the word salad, salted. ~ Mark Kurlansky

In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning.
In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains.
Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine.
When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total a ~ Matthew Amster-Burton

She buys "mixed salad greens" for seven dollars a bag, triple-washed with who knows what. And to get this stuff home, which is only two blocks away from the grocery store, Jennica throws all of it into plastic bags. There is a husk on her corn, corn that Jennica's store sells in April.. there is a rind on her grapefruit, grapefruit that gets flown in from Florida... but still, Jennica puts the corn and the citrus into plastic bags. Her supposedly organic red peppers, which cost six dollars a pound, come in a foam tray under shrink-wrap, but she puts them in a plastic bag. And then the checkout girl puts all of Jennica's little plastic parcels into two or three more big white plastic bags, and then Jennica walks the two blocks home, where she unpacks all the bags and then trows them in the same trash bin where her corn husks and citrus rinds go. ~ Rudolph Delson

Luckily, I had figured out that life was not a banquet at all but a potluck. A party celebrating nothing but the desire to be together, where everyone brings what they have, what they are able to at any given time, and it is accepted with equal love and equanimity. You can arrive with hot dogs because you are just too tired or too poor to bring anything else, or you can bring the fancier, most elaborate dish in the world, and plenty of it, to share with people who brought the three-bean salad they clearly got at the grocery store. People do the best they can, at any given time. That's the thing to remember. ~ Emily Nunn

As I see it, a green salad is an open invitation to carrots, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and the sprouts that grow in jars on my kitchen counter. ~ Victoria Moran

Her name just HAD to be Karen,' Sonny says. 'Bet she puts raisins in her potato salad.' I smirk, and we cross our arms over our chests. Wakanda forever. ~ Angie Thomas

I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings. ~ Lupita Nyong'o

I used to have to hunt for hard-boiled eggs when I was a kid. What was the point of that? Was I supposed to be, 'Yay! I found them! Egg-salad sandwiches for everyone!' I was seven! I wanted chocolate, not bioavailable protein. ~ Jen Lancaster

What Claire could do with the edible flowers that grew around the cranky apple tree in the backyard was the stuff of legend. Everyone knew that if you got Claire to cater your anniversary party, she would make aioli sauce with nasturtiums and tulip cups filled with orange salad, and everyone would leave the party feeling both jealous and aroused. And if you got her to cater your child's birthday party, she would serve tiny strawberry cupcakes and candied violets and the children would all be well behaved and would take long afternoon naps. Claire had a true magic to her cooking when she used her flowers. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

Kate pointed at a cling-film-wrapped salad that was marked: Do Not Microwave. 'She's not sure you know not to heat a salad?' Dominic rolled his eyes. 'I did once and Patty's never forgotten. That I was stoned out of my mind at the time apparently wasn't excuse enough for her. ~ C.C. Gibbs

The special was a tomato salad with bacon, basil, and blue cheese. It was a work of art. Fiona had found a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes- red, orange, yellow, green, purple, yellow with green stripes- and she stacked them on the plate in a tower as colorful as children's blocks. ~ Elin Hilderbrand

One thing had always confused Quentin about the magic he read about in books: it never seemed especially hard to do. There were lots of furrowed brows and thick books and long white beards and whatnot, but when it came right down to it, you memorized the incantation - or you just read it off the page, if that was too much trouble - you collected the herbs, waved the wand, rubbed the lamp, mixed the potion, said the words - and just like that the forces of the beyond did your bidding. It was like making salad dressing or driving stick or assembling Ikea furniture - just another skill you could learn. It took some time and effort, but compared to doing calculus, say, or playing the oboe - well, there really was no comparison. Any idiot could do magic. ~ Lev Grossman

Dean Rolfe squirmed, coughed, and looked everywhere except in Frank's eyes. To do what was fraught with legal ramifications. These were the words he had carefully avoided, the hidden croutons in his carefully prepared word salad. "To give you the reach to keep tabs on certain people, no matter where they go. You know . . . a surveillance system. ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

Salbitxada is a sharp and lightly sweet Catalan sauce that's traditionally served with calcots - spring or salad onions, grilled whole, make a good substitute. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

Listen. I eat salad ... I just now ate a bowl of oatmeal. That's right. Because I'm a real human animal, not a television character. You see, despite the beautifully Ron Swanson-like notion that one should exist solely on beef, pork, and wild game, the reality remains that our bodies need more varied foodstuffs to facilitate health and digestive functions ... ~ Nick Offerman

If you think you're going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness. Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gas lighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, you are the problem if you happen to exist. ~ Shahida Arabi

I eat a lot of chicken with salad or salmon with salad. ~ Jennifer Ellison

I don't know how you stay so fit, Tony," she said as she speared a tomato. "If I ate like this every night, I'd be as big as a house."
Beth laughed and gave her a wink. "I make sure Tony gets plenty of exercise before we go to bed. Sometimes twice on Saturdays."
Her partner flushed and ducked his head, examining his salad like it was evidence at a crime scene. Danica shook her head. Reserved didn't even begin to cover it. ~ Paige Tyler

At around 8 pm we heard the sound of sirens. As the sound drew nearer and nearer, we caught sight of a fire truck. As it reached the hotel, the truck pulled into the parking lot with emergency lights shining and horns blasting. It came to a stop in front of our congregation. We didn't see a fire or any other emergency in the immediate vicinity, so this was quite unexpected. Perhaps our smell had been reported as some kind of toxic leak or spill? Firemen began to pour out of the truck carrying different trays covered in foil. I could hardly believe my eyes. The local Franklin Fire Department had brought us all a spaghetti and meatball dinner! They also brought salad and pudding for desert. This was an example of trail magic at its finest. ~ Kyle Rohrig

I was too deeply immersed in my salad to say his full name. ~ Emma Iadanza

The pressure is on. They've teased me all week, because I've avoided anything that requires ordering. I've made excuses (I'm allergic to beef," "Nothing tastes better than bread," Ravioli is overrated"), but I can't avoid it forever.Monsieur Boutin is working the counter again. I grab a tray and take a deep breath.
"Bonjour, uh...soup? Sopa? S'il vous plait?"
"Hello" and "please." I've learned the polite words first, in hopes that the French will forgive me for butchering the remainder of their beautiful language. I point to the vat of orangey-red soup. Butternut squash, I think. The smell is extraordinary, like sage and autumn. It's early September, and the weather is still warm. When does fall come to Paris?
"Ah! soupe.I mean,oui. Oui!" My cheeks burn. "And,um, the uh-chicken-salad-green-bean thingy?"
Monsieur Boutin laughs. It's a jolly, bowl-full-of-jelly, Santa Claus laugh. "Chicken and haricots verts, oui. You know,you may speek Ingleesh to me. I understand eet vairy well."
My blush deepends. Of course he'd speak English in an American school. And I've been living on stupid pears and baquettes for five days. He hands me a bowl of soup and a small plate of chicken salad, and my stomach rumbles at the sight of hot food.
"Merci," I say.
"De rien.You're welcome. And I 'ope you don't skeep meals to avoid me anymore!" He places his hand on his chest, as if brokenhearted. I smile and shake my head no. I can do this. I can do this. I can-
Stephanie Perkins

Would you like a tuna-salad sandwich?'
'Yes,' God said. 'Thank you. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The poet made eating salad with your fingers seem to be the only natural and sensible thing to do. ~ Sylvia Plath

BACKYARD GARDEN SALAD In wartime, patriotic families cultivated "Victory Gardens" to promote self-sufficiency and help the war effort. 4 cups mixed greens 1/4 cup fresh sprigs of dill 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves 4 large basil leaves, rolled up and thinly sliced crosswise 1 large lemon, halved 1/4 cup fruity olive oil pinch of salt fresh ground black pepper to taste 1 cup toasted walnuts 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese 1 cup fresh edible flowers; choose from bachelor's buttons, borage, calendulas, carnations, herb flowers (basil, chives, rosemary, thyme), nasturtiums, violas, including pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, stock Toss salad greens and herbs in a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice (without the seeds) over the greens and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss again. Add walnuts and feta and toss well. Divide salad and pansies among four serving plates and serve. (Source: Adapted from California Bountiful) ~ Susan Wiggs

… not my own opinion, but my wife's: Yesterday, when weary with writing, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was set before me. 'It seems then,' I said, 'if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water, vinegar, oil and slices of eggs had been flying about in the air for all eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there would come a salad.' 'Yes,' responded my lovely, 'but not so nice as this one of mine. ~ Johannes Kepler

I hate him like a fat man hates salad! If I had to choose between hanging with him and a hard kick in the groin, I'd consider the kick.

All Things Work Together ~ Maurice M. Gray Jr.

You need to eat your salad," Aidan finally said.
"Oh, so now you're telling me what to eat?"
"You're supposed to be eating a lot of green, leafy vegetables for the folic acid."
She arched her brows in surprise. "And just how do you know that?"
Through a mouthful of baked potato, he said, "What To Expect While You're Expecting. ~ Katie Ashley

I don't think people should be fed mesclun salad and chicken breast. My grandmother would serve grits and oxtail stew at a formal dinner, and if you didn't like it, well then you ate more beans or you went home and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. ~ Marjorie Gubelmann

Nim unwrapped a loaf of fresh dilled rye bread and opened a crock of trout mousse. He slathered up a big slice and handed it to me. [ ... ] We had thinly sliced veal smothered in kumquat sauce, fresh spinach with pine nuts, and fat red beefsteak tomatoes (impossibly rare at this time of year) broiled and stuffed with lemon apple sauce. The wide, fan-shaped mushrooms were sauteed lightly and served as a side dish. The main course was followed by a salad of red and green baby lettuce with dandelion greens and toasted hazelnuts. ~ Katherine Neville

I'm tired of females who order a salad, then look as if they deserve a medal. A good meal is a gift. ~ Jennifer Probst

The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane. It's pure government policy. ~ Alice Waters

Under the twinkling trees was a table covered with Guatemalan fabric, roses in juice jars, wax rose candles from Tijuana and plates of food - Weetzie's Vegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemade pizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch, Brandy-Lynn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepes and Valentine's Jamaican plantain pie. Witch Baby's stomach growled but she didn't leave her hiding place. Instead, she listened to the reggae, surf, soul and salsa, tugged at the snarl balls in her hair and snapped pictures of all the couples. ~ Francesca Lia Block

There was a bowl of tuna salad. She grabbed two slices of the closest bread and smacked on a gob, squashing it flat. She sliced it with one long cut and dropped down into a chair at the far end of the table.
David sat at the other end, one of the old tablets next to him, facedown.
"I don't eat tuna salad," he said, grabbing a piece of bread. "It's too mysterious. People sneak things into it. It's a sneak food."
"I like it," Hunter said. "We make it at home with sliced-up dill pickle and Old Bay Seasoning."
"Good to know," David said. "Nate, where do you come down on tuna salad?:
Nate was trying to read and eat some cold mac and cheese in peace.
"I don't eat fish," he said. "Fish freak me out. ~ Maureen Johnson

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomat - the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know how much oil to mix in with one's vinegar. ~ Oscar Wilde

My father belonged to a commune, and the food was ghastly. My idea of food hell is the salad cream they'd pour all over bits of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. It was just disgusting. ~ Marianne Faithfull

THE CRUST OF the bread was golden and crisp as Annie pulled it from the oven, setting it on a rack to cool. She stood back and looked at the bounty she'd been able to pull together, satisfied and proud. Ham, chicken-and-corn pudding, mashed potatoes, green bean salad, baked squash, strawberry pie. A good wife, she thought. A ~ Rae Meadows