Ruth A. Matson

This aristocrat of the salad family is usually considered to belong properly to dinner, accompanying the main entrèe, or even better, as a separate course to refresh the palate. But why not, on a hot summer day, feature the big bowl of cool greens for itself? The accompaniment can be hearty - cheese muffins or sandwiches - but let the salad have the center of the stage.

An added pleasure of this salad lunch is that you can mix your own. Take a large tray and line it with grape leaves or large flat leaves of leaf lettuce. In the center place a shallow dish piled high with heart leaves of lettuce, watercress and spikes of French endive. Around this dish, on the grape leaves, arrange fruits according to your liking, such as:

In doubling or tripling this recipe, you can put all the ingredients for the dressing into a blender (cutting the amount of garlic in half) for a quick whirl. Store the dressing in a screw-cap jar until the salad is ready to be tossed. The flavor is the same, but the texture of the dressing is creamy and looks less attractive on the romaine.

This recipe originally accompanied Fruit Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing