First off, I am fresh back from a trip to West Texas to celebrate food writer and radio show host John DeMers’ novel Marfa Shadows (the first in his Chef Brett series) and I am wholeheartedly in love with this little far off corner of my home state.

Second off, YES.  I am totally writing a post about eating salad in cattle wrangling country.  Commence your omnivorous eye rolling…. now!!  :)  Not to worry, I’ll talk about eating cows in an upcoming post.

There are few parts of a meal (or meals in their entirety) that I enjoy more than salad.  I don’t know that a novice cook like me ever has such an easy way to make a colorful, texture rich and delicious dinner table impact in any other form.

We had the pleasure of sharing a couple of  lovely ‘Chef Brett inspired’ meals cooked by none other than John DeMers himself – and he made us this lovely mandarin-poppy seed dressing touched

I knew from the first bite that John was a texture junkie, just like me.  This was about the time I decided I loved him :)

Fresh greens, crispy red onions and shredded carrots, sweet juicy mandarin slices and crunchy chopped nuts.  Perfect for the salad geek within — and even more perfect to welcome his comfort food extraordinaire Tuscan white bean chili that steamed up the next course.  Oh mah gah.

Usually I don’t jump for sweet dressings, but this one was just right.  To re-create I’ll take this great (and simple!!) poppy seed dressing and probably tweak to incorporate some of the extra mandarin orange juice in lieu of some (or all) of the sugar.

A later West Texas salad at the exquisite Cochineal restaurant in Marfa brought a whole new leafy dimension to our trip.  I overheard that Cochineal’s NYC owners (who live in the back of the completely gorgeous minimalist restaurant building) have their own garden plots with pear trees to provide some of their tasty ingredients.

I totally believe it.  Behold the freshest and simplest salad any lettuce lover could ask for – crisp greens (that actually TASTE like something – weeeeird :) ), super thin pear slices, delicious goat cheese crumbles and some sharp divine radish all lovingly embraced by a light peppery vinaigrette.  Divine.

Salads in West Texas = AWESOME.  You really, really, really need to go to there.  Seriously.