Lettuce Eat
Cheryl Holmes Staging
‘Lettuce Eat’
Take your vertical garden horizontal and grow from the (dinner-party) table.
There’s nothing quite like an outdoor garden party; made special by sprucing up an otherwise casual backyard garden with real silverware, elegant tablecloths and, of course, oversized flower centerpieces for splashes of bright, vivid color.
In this sweet simplification of a salad, a variety of lettuce is the star of the centerpieces and later the center of the plates. Cheryl Holmes crafted this refreshing deconstruction of the salad bar: adding simple to simple, creating elegance with ease. Designer foods are typically over-complicated, overpriced and tend to under satisfy. In this contrary instance, Holmes has taken chic vertical gardening (home grown), horizontal. The “green” salad pictured here was designed by Holmes to not only impress guests, but to impress upon their consciousness and is sure to generate delighted discussion about the “Designer Food without the spin” or salad spinner.
Lettuce, pre-washed, left growing in small clay pots centered among its bright friends: carrots, peppers, chicken, mushrooms, beets, traditional oil and vinegar and crusty French bread will bring together the lines of couples who will, as needed, tear off crisp pieces to make their own fresh, scrumptious salad. Talk about a salad bar. It’s truly incredible how delicious just-picked homegrown lettuce can be. And of course, the nutritional value of just-picked lettuce is much higher than lettuce that’s been sitting around for days quite possibly wilting in pesticides.
Small clay pots housing a variety of organic leafy greens placed on any dinner party table adds new freshness to alfresco. Lettuces, so understatedly ornamental, provide a design so simple and yet complex: green eating, in color and conservation. This utilitarian idea not only provides a relaxing bouquet of color, the bed for the main course and endless hours of conversation of creative conservation, it provides pure eating. The elimination of pesticides on the lettuce, which, if it were store bought, would have sat for more than a week, are likely to contain more pesticides than flavor. Store-bought lettuces are optimized for ease of growth and taste is given little consideration. In contrast, fresh “local” lettuce offers much more to both palettes: taste and hue.
It’s Elementary
Let your inner designer come out as you emulate this elementary Holmes discovery. Lettuce is as easy to grow as grass, and with little effort, you can have delicious and nutritious greens at your back door, or in this case, at your table. Full sun is best under 80F. San Diegans: choose the most heat tolerant kinds of lettuce: the open-leafed varieties (looseleaf) which also happen to be the prettiest and best suited for our pictured salad soiree.
Forget the idea of lettuce as the bland canvas to be colored by other vegetables, it’s an essential palette pleaser. You will never settle for shop lettuce again after you’ve tasted a truly fresh garden lettuce and your dinner party guests will never forget your Holmes-inspired salad-sational table.
Concept and table design: Cheryl Holmes Staging
Clay Pots: Weidner’s Gardens
Photography: Josh McMurtrie
Lettuce: Weidners Gardens (Encinitas)
Cardiff home courtesy of: Bob and Ellen Rief
