Salad Daze

One of my all time favorite cook books is my reprint of the 1950s Betty Crocker. Showing idyllic, almost Normal Rockwellian portrayances of food, it is both entertaining to peruse and ever so slightly uncomfortably fascist.
  I tell you this because several months ago I hit a low point, culinary speaking. I appreciated the importance of eating raw vegetables in general but became so sick and tired of salads. The salads I served with dinner consisted of a nothing but a handful of greens and blue cheese dressing dumped on top. It was something I would mindlessly consume first so I could get to the 'real' food. But it was faithful old Betty Crocker who pulled me from this hole.
  They say smell (and therefore taste by association) is the most memory provoking of senses. What sparked my salad revelation was a slice of cheese cut, accidentally, on the stinky side of my wooden cutting board. I use one side of the cutting board for most uses but the second side is used for pungent vegetables; onions, garlic and the like. It was on this surface that I sliced some cheddar and let it lay upon the tainted wooden surface while my attention was elsewhere. Upon returning to the slice and consuming it I noticed that it held a faint hint of the onion and garlic oils infused with the wood. I also noticed that it tasted good.
  This then sparked a memory from the salad section of the old Betty Crocker Cookbook instructing one to rub a wooden bowl with cut cloves of garlic to infuse the greens with a hint of garlic flavor. The bowl was then washed with hot water only and was not put to any other use that you did not want the subtle flavor of garlic added. I did not have a wooden bowl at the time but that very night I tried the trick with a glass bowl and for the first time in a long time I enjoyed a salad with dinner.
  This sparked a salad renascence in my kitchen. I now own a wooded salad bowl- purchased with some leftover Christmas money and it holds salad nearly every night for my family. I have been experimenting with just about any vegetable that tastes good raw. I also have mostly abandoned bottled salad dressing. I suggest never reading the ingredient list on bottle of salad dressing if you wish to continue using then. Instead I have been dressing the salad in the bowl with oil and vinegar plus basically anything else I think will taste good. Below I have included several suggested combination.

Mixed greens, minced shallot, blue cheese crumbles, chopped walnuts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Red leaf lettuce, sprouts, thinly sliced red bell pepper, chopped avocado, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, red wine vinegar, cumin, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Romaine lettuce, sliced cucumber, grated pecorino romano cheese, olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sliced cucumber, minced red onion, fresh oregano, feta cheese crumbles, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Green leaf lettuce, sliced onion, sliced celery, sliced apple, chopped pecans, blue cheese crumbles, olive oil,  apple cider vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sprouts, sliced radish, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, dry mustard, paprika, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mainly I suggest experimenting with the salad, make them interesting to make and they will be interesting to eat as well. Plus, let's face it, we could all use more raw vegetables in our diets.