Review: Perfect Salad Partners

Jennifer Chandler's Salad Niçoise

I was fortunate enough this month to have two products offered to me to review that just happened to be the perfect pairing: Simply Salads -a cookbook by Jennifer Chandler, and Tanimura and Antle Artisan Lettuces. What a great combo for this time of year!


I adore salads, so any cookbook that focuses solely on recipes for delicious salads is perfect for me. Add to it the fact that each of these salads is made using a base of any one of 26 bagged salad blends, and I jumped at the chance to read it. I love this book and it's going to be getting a lot of play in my kitchen this summer.

The book begins with Salad Blends 101, a chapter detailing each of the most common bagged salad blends available, with photos, so that you know just what you're looking for. It then goes on to the best-possible pantry for salad making and then offers up more than 100 different salad recipes listed by main ingredient. Jennifer Chandler has matched up ingredients with greens creating gourmet recipes that are simple enough to serve every day.

The Tanimura and Antle clamshell design protects these beauties and keeps them fresh.

I took these recipes and paired up one of them with the Tanimura and Antle lettuces that I received and the result was pure bliss. Tanimura and Antle have been selling the freshest of the fresh in produce since 1982. These new Artisan lettuces, Tango, Oak and Gem are petite and perfect. I received 8 lettuces total: 2 red Tango, 2 green Tango, 2 red Gem and 2 green Gem. The website and literature state that these have an extended shelf-life of 16 days, and they are 100% correct. I've never had lettuces hold up so well for so long and still taste good. Think about it, my samples were shipped from California, not purchased at the store, and they made their journey here in absolutely perfect condition and held up stored in the refrigerator until I had time to use them.

They were the perfect base for the salad recipes in Simply Salads and something I hope my own local stores begin carrying.

Copies of Simply Salads are available at Amazon.com.

Please see the Tanimura and Antle website for more information on Artisan lettuce and recipes for all of their wonderful produce.