Salad Days

Finally, my tomatoes have started to come in, even if so far it's only the Sweet 100s. Yes, you read that right. Here it is the first week in August and my cherry tomatoes are just getting ripe. Well, the Early Girls have started to show some color as well, so I guess that's something. I suppose when you live close to the coast there is a trade-off you have to pay for all of those 65-degree evenings, but I didn't really expect it to be this drastic. After years of struggling to ripen my favorite heirloom tomatoes -- Cherokees, Black Krims, Brandywines (oh, Brandywines!

The main pleasure of salad lies in the way flavors play against each other--sweet lettuce and mustardy vinaigrette, or peppery herbs and unctuous fresh cheeses. That complexity can also be achieved with less traditional elements. This is a fruity, slightly sweet salad to refresh the palate.

NOTE: This is a blog about two guys attempting to lose weight over a six-week period.  They kicked off their weight-loss "strategies" on Jan. 10 . I screwed up and thought I had a bunch of cookies stashed in my desk. I ate the first one upon arrival and come lunch I slid my desk drawer open and there was none left in the bag.  So for the first time in over a week I was going to eat something other than one cookie for lunch. I knew this was wrong.

You can buy salads in all kinds of places, from supermarkets to gourmet shops. But highly flavored, fresh-looking, lower fat combinations are hard to come by. By the time you've finished fine-tuning a carry-out, you might as well make it yourself. These salad recipes dress up even the most casual summer meal. They all take advantage of the season's bounty, are amazingly easy to make and actually improve in flavor when they are made a day ahead and refrigerated.

McRat in McSalad? It hasn't been the best of months for the Todd Haley family. The Dallas Cowboys' passing-game coordinator found himself in a shouting match with receiver Terrell Owens, and now comes a stomach-churning McLawsuit. Haley is suing McDonald's for $1.7 million in damages, alleging that his wife and the family's au pair found a six-inch dead rodent in their salad, according to the Dallas Morning News website.

EVER ASKED YOUR HOST if you can help with dinner, then were sorry you asked? Nobody likes to wash lettuce. But now there's the perfect solution: salad bags. Each re-closable plastic bag holds an appetizing assortment of organically grown--and washed and ready to go--baby lettuces enough for two to four people. Earthbound Farm Salad Bags are sold (for $3.79) at all Mrs. Gooch's Natural Food Markets.

Every time I try to tell somebody from someplace else that California isn't as goofy a state as everybody thinks, something happens to screw up my whole case. Take the news story that ran coast to coast last week with a Sacramento dateline. "Gov. Pete Wilson," it began, "rode to the rescue of Caesar salad lovers, signing legislation allowing restaurants to serve the salads with raw eggs in the dressing, if the diner doesn't object." Stop the presses.

Belgian endive, the butt of jokes in the presidential campaign, is gaining respectability in Massachusetts, where researchers are developing new varieties and promoters call it the "white gold" of vegetables. More than 150 chefs and restaurant owners gathered recently for a sumptuous repast of Belgian endive with caviar, chilled cream of endive soup and braised endive with veal. Toast of the Party Although he did not attend, the toast of the $15,000 party thrown by Belgian produce shippers was Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, who appears to have nearly as devoted a following among endive sellers as among Greek-Americans.

Reverence for history and culture is commendable. But tossing together a strange salad of ancient artifacts and art objects that clearly constitutes three separate, small and mediocre exhibits--pretending they form a cohesive exhibition and promoting the whole as if it were a cohesive exhibition--is not sound museum practice.

Who doesn't love a good party? That's the attitude of leadership at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. So with that thought in mind, the opening night of Diavolo came complete with a shindig at the French bistro La Cachette in Santa Monica. As a former dancer, board member Jamie Bishton recalled the cast parties he attended after his performances with American Ballet Theatre, Twyla Tharp's dance company and the White Oak Dance Project. "When I was dancing, we wanted to meet everyone who saw the show, not just the select few who paid the big dollars," he said.

Seventh-grader Melina Resto was far from thrilled at the prospect of spending her Saturday planting lettuce, sweet golden bell peppers and red cabbage at the Veterans' Garden on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus. But by the time she and dozens of other student volunteers had poked several flats of seedlings into neat rows in a vegetable patch, she decided that the experience was actually pretty cool.

The Sands Opened: 1952 Cost to build: $5.5 million Opening act: Planting a time capsule that included Jimmy Durante's hat and Bing Crosby's pipe. Biggest act: The Rat Pack -- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop -- performed onstage for the first time in the Copa Room. Sinatra connection: Owned a good-sized share of the hotel and, at different times, drove a golf cart through a window and overturned the casino boss' furniture.

McRat in McSalad? It hasn't been the best of months for the Todd Haley family. The Dallas Cowboys' passing-game coordinator found himself in a shouting match with receiver Terrell Owens, and now comes a stomach-churning McLawsuit. Haley is suing McDonald's for $1.7 million in damages, alleging that his wife and the family's au pair found a six-inch dead rodent in their salad, according to the Dallas Morning News website.

Most think that Caesars Palace is a place in the Los Angeles suburb of Las Vegas where you take your money and give it to poor, indigent casino owners. It is that, and more. In the last 40 years, Caesars has been where you can go to a blackjack table, or a slot machine, and a weird sports event will break out. Caesars has seen, really close up, Robert "Evel" Knievel, James "the Fan Man" Miller, non-designer garbage bags, and the Great One and the grasshoppers.

All told, between Tuesday and Jan. 4, we're talking: 56 teams, 28 bowl games, five Mid-American Conference schools (but none from the state of Nebraska), future NFL Europe players preening for cameras, empty backfields and empty seats. A few of these games will bowl you over; most will not. As always, in offering our worst-to-best assessments, viewer discretion is extremely advised. 28. Fort Worth: Cincinnati (6-5) vs. Marshall (6-5).

For nearly nine years, Carl Haas had refused to cross the line between CART, now Champ Car, and the Indianapolis 500. When he refused to allow Michael Andretti, his longtime driver, to run in the 500 several years ago, Andretti quit his team. Actor Paul Newman, co-owner of Newman-Haas Racing, is one of the old group's most outspoken opponents of the 500, or at least what it represents as the centerpiece of Tony George's Indy Racing League.