Walnut, Chevre and Strawberry Salad

All I want to eat is my new favorite salad.

It's a mix of Marin Roots Farm lettuces. Yesterday it was little gems and a variety with red lace edges. And I bought a head of a kind I swear is from a Beatrice Potter story book.

I add other greens I'm inspired to bring home too - wild arugula, mustard, pea shoots. I haven't tasted greens as good since the first time I tasted mesclun mix on an organic farm in Sebastopol. Fire rockets went off in my mouth and everything I thought I knew about the world in that moment disappeared.

This is lettuce I'm talking about. It's not supposed to be that good.

But back to making the salad. I toast a small pan of Jackie's walnuts thinking about the people who stole her orchard of irrigation pipes in the night. And then I burn the damn walnuts, curse and stomp and eat them anyway.

Slicing up organic strawberries from Swanton Berry Farm in Santa Cruz I top the lettuce in an oversized bowl.

Next is a third of a round of the Andante chevre crumbled over the berries. And gladly stuck to my fingers.

Adding the hot walnuts on top of the cheese is the best part. They make a noise you can hear even if you aren't quiet.

I've quit using bottled dressing and instead use Bariani's olive oil and sea salt. It's straightforward good. There's no question that a bite of strawberry, tastes like strawberry. The salt like salt, the lettuce like a pretty day.

Licking my fingers between each bite, I eat slowly, without a fork, tasting all the combinations of berry, cheese and oil, lettuce, salt and walnut.

Not wanting any of it to end.