We’ve been having an incessently rainy spring here in Philadelphia. It feels like it’s been raining for months (the only time out from the grey drizzle being the three-day heat wave we had in April). Having grown up in Portland, I try to remain outwardly unaffected when it comes to the rain, mostly because I still harbor a embryonic desire to live there again someday, and I don’t want to give this man I live with any further ammunition against the place (the chances, however, of us moving to Portland are narrow to none, so no one freak out). It is starting to get to me though.

I am grateful for one thing that this drizzle brings with it, and that is the return of the local salad greens. They love these cool, wet days and so have been turning up in abundance at local farmers markets. I bought two bags last Saturday at the Rittenhouse Market and I desperately wanted to purchase more Sunday at the Headhouse Market (I wisely refrained as even when salad greens are delightful, there is still a limit to how much we can eat before they turn slimy).

Tonight’s dinner was a simple one, that took all of two minutes to throw together (once the chicken was cooked). It was two big handfuls of salad greens (the farmers I buy from pre-wash their greens before bagging, so they are ready to go, just like the ones you buy from the regular grocery store), three inches of chopped English cucumber, some slivered red onion, a few spoonfuls of garbanzo beans, some feta cheese and a few chopped chicken tenders that I cooked on a countertop grill (like a George Foreman, only bigger).

I predict many more meals such as this one before the salad green season is out.