Tonight I decided to see how far I could push the the dinner envelope. With the thermometer at 83° and slightly muggy,  this was a salad night. Back in the day, Nonna used to make a salad every night when she cooked us dinner, but I couldn’t recall when I last saw her actually eat one. I kinda had a feeling she may not be crazy about them, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all those other platitudes…

I went with the basic lettuces – iceberg and romaine – and then added grilled chicken, cubed fontina cheese, chopped tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, shredded carrots… I figured I’d go as basic as I could. Victor make a simple oil and vinegar dressing.

She ate everything but the lettuce. She’s just no longer a fan of lettuce. Tomorrow is her 87th birthday. If she doesn’t want to eat lettuce, she doesn’t have to eat lettuce.

Since we both really like our dinner salads, we were momentarily concerned, but then told her that whenever we do dinner salads, we’ll just make her a nice plate of all the stuff that goes onto the lettuce. We just won’t put the lettuce on the plate, first.

Simple solution.

And speaking of simple solutions… we had a bit of leftover risotto.

Victor made risotto balls.

They’re really just risotto rolled into balls, rolled in bread crumbs, and fried. Hot and crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

And they totally rocked. Nonna had three of them. To make up for the lettuce she didn’t eat, I’m sure.