Salad Days

It’s far too hot to be inspirational tonight. It must still be about 28 degrees outside and it is 7.30 at night. I’ve spent a fair bit of time on the beach today – it’s a win lose situation – it’s hot in the sun, but the sea is the only way to cool down. You can imagine the colour I have turned though.

I told you that I planted basil on my terasa, and as I had such a good crop of it, I have just made a big batch of pesto to share with my neighbours. We gossiped over the fence with bruschetta, pesto and salami (you may have a visual there, but it will be wrong – there is no fence, we just stand in the hall chatting, joking that we are gossiping over a fence) and I mentioned my latest cunning plan.

I think I can see a chink in the market for food. Salads. The green market is brimming, brimming I say, with fresh domaci product. Delicious greens, huge capsicums of every hue, tomatoes like nothing you have tasted before… imagine the salads! I make fantastic salads in my kitchenette and sit here all self congratulatory while I eat them, but the salads in the restaurants are, to coin a phrase, crap. Boring and a bit of an afterthought on the menus. Always a disappointment.

I’ve questioned Ivan about the type of food in the mainstream tourist restaurants, and the answer is that the tourists are given what they want. Most of the tourists are Eastern Block, and so they want to eat Wiener schnitzel, beef steak and chips, or pizza. And it looks as though that is what they eat regularly (they generally are a chubby lot..)

But as I wander around the town, I hear a new generation of tourists emerging – there are lots of English speaking voices on the riva and in the cafes in town (although I can’t hear these same voices on the beach), and I would imagine that a salad bar would go down a treat. You know, maybe five to choose from, take-away in a punnet of some sort with a fork and a glass of squeezed juice. Healthy, nutritious and easy to take on a picnic with a loaf of bread and some delicious cheese. And low maintenance to make and supply.
If I keep mentioning it, maybe someone will pick it up. I hope someone will, and soon. Or maybe I could… I’ve done it before -Lunch on the Run!

(BTW, thanks to John – he has gathered information that shows that although the incidence of fatal accidents is high in Croatia, the percentage of 15 -24 year olds causing the accidents is low– maybe the driving school thing works!)