A Love Letter to a Salad

What does a writer do when procrastinating? Write more. But about completely the wrong thing. So here is my latest work...

A Love Letter to a Side Salad

Nobody moves to New Orleans for the salads. We are a city of roux and smoke, of butter that answers to no one, of po-boys dressed like they're going somewhere important. We measure love in gravy. We always have.

And still... there you were.

You weren't even trying to impress me. A side salad. The humble opening act of a thousand menus. Cucumbers, tomato, red onion. That's it. That's the whole cast. No candied pecans doing backflips, no goat cheese begging for attention. Just the classics, cold and crisp, showing up like they'd done it a million times because they had.

But here's the thing about New Orleans... even the simple moments come with a little lagniappe.

Because when the dressing question came, I hesitated. Citrus vinaigrette or balsamic. There I was, caught between bright and deep, sunshine and velvet, and I finally said balsamic with the smallest crack in my voice.

The server heard it and when he brought my salad he brought both.

That, right there, is this city. Nobody announced it. Nobody made it a moment. He just saw a woman at war with herself over dressing and decided nobody should have to choose between two good things. Two little ramekins landed on my table like a blessing, and I swear I almost cried into my cucumbers.

And both of them... divine. Blow your mind level. The citrus vinaigrette was alive, all sunshine and zip, the taste of a Tuesday pretending to be a Saturday. The balsamic was its opposite and its equal, dark and sweet and sure of itself. I went back and forth between them like a woman with two loves and zero regrets. Some bites got one. Some bites got both. I answer to no one.

Beside it all, a cold glass of white wine, sweating politely in the heat, doing exactly what a cold glass of white wine is supposed to do in this city... which is everything.

Thirty minutes. No time to try anything else on the menu. That's all I had. A thirty-minute lunch in a city that believes lunch is a birthright, and my body, wise woman that she is, had been whispering all morning: just a salad. Not a po-boy, not something smothered, not this time. Just something cold and clean and green. And when I listened, she rewarded me with the best side salad ever. The body knows. She always knows. We just don't always listen.

People will tell you a side salad can't be a love story. Those people have never watched the last cucumber disappear, two ramekins scraped honest, a wine glass down to its last cool sip, and felt that small, specific grief... the one we feel when the music stops, when the float turns the corner, when the plate goes back empty.

So this is my letter, left on the table like a napkin note. Thank you, salad, for proving the magic here isn't only in the excess. Sometimes it's a server who notices your hesitation. THANK YOU, SIR. Sometimes it's two dressings when you only asked for one. Sometimes it's thirty minutes that feel like a whole afternoon.

New Orleans taught me to love loudly and celebrate each moment. You, little side salad, meant something.

With all my heart, a little citrus on my chin, a second line in my step wherever the rhythm carries me,

Karlita

Karla Marie “Karlita” Cochran

In the Spotlight 504 New Orleans

Thank you to Cafe at the Square for my little lover salad.