Favorite Raspberry Tossed Salad — Light and Green and Sharp, Like the Week Needed

I have been baking more lately. The grief work after Mamma is, I think, complete enough that the baking has shifted from defense to celebration. The bread is for the table where Ingrid sits in her high chair. The cookies are for the great-grandchildren who come up for the weekends. The pies are for the friends I have started feeding again. The kitchen is back to its primary function: feeding the living people I love. Elsa and Tom came for the weekend. Tom helped me move the heavy planters in the garden — the big terracotta ones I bought at a yard sale in 1995 that I cannot lift anymore. He did not ask. He just did it. He is the quiet kind of man Paul was. I see why Elsa loves him. The quiet men are not the loudest in the room, but they are usually the most useful. Paul taught me this by example. Tom is teaching it by repetition. Anna had a small surgery. She is fine. I drove to Minneapolis for two weeks to help. I cooked. I cleaned. I cared. Anna said: "Mom, I had forgotten you were a nurse." I said: "I haven't." The thirty-five years at St. Mary's are not the kind of thing that fades. The skills come back at the first request. The hands remember how to take a pulse. The eyes remember how to read a face for pain. The role is permanent. I cooked Spring vegetable stew this week. Leeks, new potatoes, carrots, asparagus, peas, dill, butter, vegetable stock. Twenty minutes. Light and green and sharp. Damiano Center, Thursday. New volunteer this week — a young woman named Sara, just out of college, looking lost and brave. I showed her how to ladle. She caught on quickly. She asked me how long I had been doing this. I said: "Long enough that I do not count." She laughed. She will be back. The good ones come back. Paul's chair is at the head of the table. His glasses are on the shelf. The arrangement is permanent. The arrangement is the love. The arrangement has been remarked on, gently, by various people over the years — Anna, mostly, and well-meaning friends. The arrangement persists. I do not require justification for it. The chair is the chair. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I have started, in the last few years, to think about what I will leave behind. Not in a morbid way. In a practical way. The recipes are written down. The notebook is on the counter. The kitchen is in good order. The house is in Anna's name (we did the legal work in 2032; the kids agreed; it was the practical thing). The grandchildren and great-grandchildren each have a few small specific things — a wooden spoon, a bread pan, a particular cast iron skillet — that I have already labeled with their names on small pieces of masking tape. Nobody knows about the masking tape labels. They will find them when they find them. Paul used to say that the difference between a place and a home was that a home was a place where you knew, from any room, what was happening in any other room. I knew, from the kitchen, when he was reading in the living room. I knew, from the bedroom, when he was getting coffee in the kitchen. The Kenwood house is still that kind of home. From the kitchen I know that Sven is asleep on his bed in the dining room (the small specific snore). From the kitchen I know what time the radio in the living room is set to come on. The home is the body of knowledge of itself. I still live inside that body of knowledge, even though Paul is not the one creating most of the data anymore. It is enough.

The stew had done its job — leeks and asparagus and new potatoes, twenty minutes, exactly what that particular week required — but the table kept asking for more green, more brightness, something that felt like the season rather than just a response to it. This raspberry tossed salad has been in my notebook for years, and I keep returning to it in April and May because it carries the same quality the best spring food does: it tastes like relief. I made it the evening Elsa and Tom drove back home, when the house was quiet again and I wanted something that required almost nothing of me but still felt like a proper meal.

Favorite Raspberry Tossed Salad

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 8 cups mixed salad greens (romaine, spinach, or spring mix)
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup seasoned croutons
• Raspberry Vinaigrette:
• 3 tablespoons raspberry jam or preserves
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

1. Toast the almonds. Place sliced almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Stir frequently for 3–4 minutes until golden and fragrant. Remove from heat and let cool.
2. Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the raspberry jam, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking until the dressing is emulsified and smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning.
3. Prep the greens. Wash and dry the salad greens thoroughly. Tear any large leaves into bite-sized pieces and place in a large salad bowl.
4. Assemble the salad. Scatter the sliced red onion, toasted almonds, and crumbled feta over the greens. Gently nestle the fresh raspberries throughout so they don’t crush.
5. Add croutons and dress. Top with croutons just before serving. Drizzle the raspberry vinaigrette over the salad — start with half and add more to taste — and toss gently. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 16g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 220mg