When you write of a "decomposed salad" I am picturing slime on a plate. Not too appetizing.

Maybe deconstructed would work better?

Owl--I think that must have been the intended word.

I have had the occasional decomposed salad and that's why I no longer eat salad in restaurants. If they are serving obviously rotting produce, just think about how times you got non-obviously rotting produce. It only takes one tiny hidden leaf of tainted arugula to cause the gods of digestion to go medieval on you.

Decomposed and deconstructed are synonyms, but each has other implications that are unsavory and ruin any dinner party: (1) rotting, especially flesh and, worse, (2) the literary analysis of Derrida.

Zut alors!

When I was growing up, Mom would buy bags of lettuce at the Price Club that would often result in decomposed salad in the refrigerator.

The refrigerator crisper should be called the rotter.

What would Derrida do with a salade composée?

Surely he would challenge the unquestioned cultural assumption that a salad must contain lettuce, and point out the binary opposition of the tomato and the onion.

I don't think Derrida would be a locavore.

Spot on, Laura Lee.

And while I'm whining about language, I must object to Richard's reference to "Tuscany colors." The adjectival form of Tuscany would be Tuscan. (At least he didn't write Tuscanish).

"Tuscany colors."

Aye....Don't confuse that with Tuscadero colors: Pink

What would Derrida do with a salade composée?

1) Pick it apart until it was ruined
2) Turn it into 30 grad student theses

Surely he would challenge the unquestioned cultural assumption that a salad must contain lettuce, and point out the binary opposition of the tomato and the onion.

Plus why Americans ruined the salad and why its very existence demeands women. More thesis topics.

Owl, I had a grad school professor who was rumored to take student papers and present them as his own work. I was half annoyed and half flattered when one of my papers "went missing."

Total segue now, but I'm reading Julia Child's correspondence with Avis DeVoto, and in one letter she veers from why she can't be bothered with preserving vitamins in cooked foods (much more important, from her point of view, to make them delicious) to why McCarthyism is ruining America. It makes a great read.

Ph.D. students often hide their most innovative ideas in the footnotes of their theses for the same reasons & because their thesis committee always has at least one fool

I noticed that the review mentions that their $38 dinner will be offered at the special low price of $36.10 during Restaurant Week. Wow, how generous to offer a $1.90 discount during RW!

Why would you want the flash fried calamari and shrimp dressed? Wouldn't that make them soggy?

"glazed" would have been a better word choice. I knew that I wanted the kitchen to take control of the appetizer, to show me something. toss them with pickled peppers, or flash fried spinach, give me something to remember it by.

Can someone explain to me what "flash fried" is? Are restaurants frying at 700 degrees?

Since I like alot of "dressing" and my wife prefers a tiny amount or none I am glad when restaurants serve items like fried calamari and shrimp without a glaze, sauce, or dressing already on the food.