Tender lettuce, ripe Celebrity tomatoes, watermelon, mild feta, a few leaves of basil, and a restrained drizzle of good balsamic vinegar: when the raw ingredients are this good, cooking is irrelevant. I had a similar watermelon/tomato/feta salad from St. James Cheese Company’s recent luncheon-booth stint at the Tuesday Crescent City Farmer’s Market, and I opened the refrigerator this weekend to discover I had all of the key ingredients on hand.
This peak-of-summer salad is my favorite kind of food. A bit of savory (feta), tangy (tomatoes), sweet (watermelon and balsamic vinegar), all tied together with a bitter, leafy-green crunch. Another winning summer salad combination: butter lettuce, goat cheese, fresh peaches, and toasted, salted pecans. (Hmmm, wait a minute. I have peaches and goat cheese in the house: I feel another salad coming on…)
Funny….my cooking quality peaks at this time of the year. Coincidence? Probably not.