Dr. Iceberg or How I Learned to Stop Being Such a Snob and Love the Wedge Salad
Oh! Wedge salad. How I used to despise thee. How I used to scoff at restaurant guests who were base enough to request a head of iceberg lettuce, drowned in such a lowly thing as ranch dressing; How I used to decry the destruction of modern dining based solely upon your humble, water-filled - yet crisp - shoulders; Oh wedge salad, you were the lowest of the low, the sign that all good restaurants would one day be taken over by the dowdy, embroidered jumper-wearing masses of suburbanites, their tired husbands and their overweight kids, all refusing to pay $5 for valet parking their minivan.How you have converted me, you minx!! How I ordered you, late one night in a fit of what can only be described as momentary lapse of reason, or sobriety. How I gobbled up your bacon/bleu cheese/tomato/onion goodness and begged for more - yes!! more!! creamy dressing!! Subtle vinaigrettes be condemned! I want a calorie- and fat-laden, nutrition-free combination of cream, buttermilk, mayo, and herbs! I want you with a big knife to cut through the goodness!! I will mock you the whole time I'm enjoying the vapid sum of your less-than-stellar parts, the way an acquaintance of mine devours the transfat laden centers of an entire bag of double-stuff Oreos, and I will hate myself for ordering you every time.
And though I might loathe myself whilst loving you, I will awake, and think of you in the middle of the night, and guiltily suggest to Husband in the morning we take lunch at the patio of Brio at Easton, where, on a Tuesday afternoon, we can listen to a women sing ridiculous children's songs while watching obese suburban children playing in the fountains and screaming with glee. Ignoring the irony, I will count the lumps of cellulite you will gladly provide me, while contemplating the horror of soda machines in elementary schools, and think that no, I really did not have any fat rolls when I was six.
What a hypocrite you make of me, Wedge Salad!! How you mock me every time!! How I am seduced to pay $5 for you, when I would mock your iceberg foundations in a supermarket. But how you beguile me, time and again. How I long for you when eating limp, oil-soaked field greens in fancy restaurants. Why do you do it to me? You'll understand if I must deny you in public, my paramour, so as long as it remains our little secret . . .
Info: Brio Tuscan Grille 3993 Easton Station, Columbus (northeast side) 614.416.4745
other wedge salads I have loved: Press Grill 741 N. High Street, Columbus (Short North) 614.298.1014 - Try it with their $9.95 Sunday strip steak special
Spagio1295 Grandview Ave in Grandview (short west side) 614.486.1114
G. Michael's, where they use bibb lettuce instead of iceberg, so there's only half the guilt 595 S. Third Street, Columbus (German Village) 614.464.0575
