Day 27 - The Customizable Anastasio Hodgepodge Salad & It's Origin

There are two things predictable about my father. The first is that he will always call once a week to check in. It's like clockwork. If a response is not received within a couple days the potential onslaught of a brigade to my last whereabouts may be deployed to ensure that I am not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I love it. My own personal Italian Mafioso.

The second is that when you go to his house for dinner it is only inevitable that he will showcase his brilliant HodgePodge Salad (HPS) - a salad that has a significant meaning to the Anastasio family.

I remember when he first introduced me to it. I had been eating salad for quite sometime. They consisted of lettuce, canned beets and tofu... every single time. I never thought of anything else. I had memories of restrictive dieting where the bland and lifeless side salads were my only belly-comfort in the course of a week. It took a tremendous amount of will power to swallow every diluted and tasteless bite; I thought it nearly impossible to ever truly love something so torturous. Then I ate HPS. I could never go back.

My father was initially no different than me in his contempt for health food. We both were accustomed to casseroles, burgers and desserts as the mainstays in our diet. Vegetables consisted of a couple thin slices of lettuce atop a sandwich, or a piece of tomato on a macaroni and cheese platter; maybe some steamed carrots slathered in butter.

It was not until his health declined so rapidly that HPS came into our life. With the first signal of colon cancer and then soon after type II diabetes, my father divorced the core menu of his diet. Because both conditions were so intimately linked with diet, he focused on finding a way to incorporate a fiber-rich, nutrient-dense meal into his everyday life that was satisfying and delicious.

He started by using lettuce or greens of his choice like a bedded canvas on the bottom of a rustic wooden platter. He would then use kitchen utensils to thinly slice or grate vegetables into a artistic display. The avocado would be displayed like stacked halved butterfly wings, thick and abundant in one pile near the corner. A mound of rich and dark olives and slivers of beets would co-mingle next to a mountain of tuna fish salad and a heaping ladle of bright orange carrot gratings. Drizzled with a divine vinaigrette concoction it was a gateway drug to pure vitality.

This HPS work of art saved my father from dying too early and along with other lifestyle changes cured him of both diseases. Because of this HPS and I are tight. I have a respect for her daily delicious power that is unwavering.

HPS is not like any other salad. She is an invention designed to alter your viewpoint on the idea of a 'salad.' She is not a diet salad but rather a medley of your favorite rich and fresh foods bursting off the plate. You can use her as a canvas for expressing your love of color, texture and varying temperature. Sweetness with creamy, sour with salty, cold with warm, crunchy and dense or chewy and light.

I have adapted HPS to suit my favorite foods. I have a list below of the foods that I combine and use on a regular basis. There are probably a lot more, so add to it as you go on!

Remember that Awake Eating is about not only enjoying your environment (Step 2) and enjoying your food apologetically (Step 3) but also about enjoying the way your body feels (Step 4) after you eat. An Anastasio HodgePodge Salad can do just that!

Nat