We all have our favorite salad. And we can all probably remember some really baad salads. I'll give you an awful memory of mine: in Vernon, France, only steps from the sublime Monet garden, is a small hotel restaurant. I ordered a salad. It came with wilted lettuce, long-ago cut tomatoes and canned corn. What is it with the French and canned corn? They'll put the stuff on almost anything except foie gras, and I'm not even sure of that.
On the other hand, France makes some of the most sublime salads going. Here's one of my favorites, as photographed in Nantes a little while ago. By the way, Nantes has a twenty foot high mechanical elephant that is absolutely magnificent (silly factoid of the year), some lovely gardens, so there are reasons besides food to visit. But who needs any other reason?
Many times, French salads come in little piles: grated carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, those damned kernels of corn, onions, olives, whatever. This salad, however, is different. You need a generous 3/8" - 1/2" slice (why stint? you won't do this every day) of a good goat cheese for each serving, something about 3" or 4" in diameter. Failing that, in desperation...
