Chopped Salad with Radishes and Blue Cheese — The Salad I Make When the Garden Tells Me It’s Time

The garden is growing. The tomatoes have established themselves — you can tell because they stop looking fragile and start looking determined, and a determined tomato plant is a force of nature. The peas are climbing their trellis. The lettuce is lush. The dill is doing what dill always does, which is take over everything within a three-foot radius. I spent Saturday morning in the garden with Sven lying nearby in the grass, watching me with the patient attention of a dog who believes all human activity eventually leads to food. He's eleven now. Eleven. I noticed this week that he's slower getting up from his bed in the morning — a pause, a gathering of energy, and then the rise. It's subtle. Most people wouldn't see it. But I'm a nurse and I'm his person and I see everything. I won't do the math. I said that last year and I'll say it again. I won't do the math. Paul and I had dinner on the porch on Wednesday evening — the first porch dinner of the season. It doesn't sound like much, but in Duluth, eating outside is an event because the window for outdoor dining is narrow and precious. We ate at the little table that Paul built in 2005 (badly — it wobbles, but I'll never tell him, and the wobble has become a feature rather than a flaw) and the evening light was golden and the lake was visible through the birch trees and the air smelled like grass and lake and dill from the garden. I made smoked trout salad — flaked smoked trout (from the Park Point smokehouse, the same one Pappa took me to when I was small) on a bed of greens with sliced radishes, hard-boiled egg, capers, and a lemon-dill dressing. It's the most Duluth salad you can make — lake fish, garden herbs, everything local, everything the place provides. Paul ate his salad and looked at the lake and said, "Do you ever think about leaving Duluth?" I said, "No." He said, "Neither do I." And that was the whole conversation, and it was the only conversation we've ever needed to have on the subject. We've been here for twenty-eight years. The house is ours. The garden is ours. The view of the lake from the kitchen window is ours. The walk to Brighton Beach is ours. The pew at church is ours. The Thursday at the Damiano Center is ours. You don't leave a place that holds this much of you. You stay, and you let it hold you, and you hold it back. I called Mamma after dinner. She was watching the sunset from her kitchen window — a different view of the same lake, from a different kitchen in the same city — and she said, "The light is beautiful tonight, Linda." I said, "Yes, Mamma." She said, "Your father loved this light." I said, "Yes, Mamma." Some conversations are just two women watching the same sunset from different windows and saying yes.

That Wednesday porch dinner asked for exactly this kind of salad — something crisp and garden-forward that didn’t demand much from the cook, because the evening itself was the point. The radishes had just come in, and radishes in a chopped salad do what they do best: they remind you that the growing season is real and it is here. I keep the blue cheese generous, the dressing sharp with vinegar, and everything cut down to a size that means each forkful holds a little of everything — the way a good porch meal should.

Chopped Salad with Radishes and Blue Cheese

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 large head romaine lettuce, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 small head radicchio, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 bunch radishes (about 8–10), thinly sliced
• 1/2 English cucumber, quartered and sliced
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and grated garlic until emulsified. Season with 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt and several grinds of black pepper. Taste and adjust acidity or salt as needed.
2. Prep the vegetables. Chop the romaine and radicchio into roughly 1/2-inch pieces and add to a large bowl. Slice the radishes and cucumber and add to the bowl along with the scallions.
3. Dress and toss. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss well to coat every piece. Because this is a chopped salad, you want the dressing to reach everything — don’t be shy about tossing thoroughly.
4. Add the cheese and nuts. Scatter the crumbled blue cheese and toasted walnuts over the top. Toss gently once more so the cheese distributes without fully breaking down.
5. Serve immediately. Plate and finish with a final grind of black pepper. This salad is best eaten right away while the romaine holds its crunch.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 360mg