Grilled Chicken Salad -- What the Garden Gives You

June in Vermont is the payoff for everything winter did to you. The garden is alive — lettuce big enough to pick, peas climbing, tomatoes flowering. The farmhouse windows are open for the first time since October, and the house breathes differently when it can smell the outside. Frost lies on the porch all day now, chin on his paws, watching the road like he's expecting company. He's not. He's just a dog with a view and nowhere to be. I envy him.

I made a salad this week with the first garden lettuce. I know that sounds like nothing — a salad, who cares — but there's a difference between lettuce from the store, which tastes like cold water with ambition, and lettuce from the garden, which tastes like the dirt it grew in, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Helen's garden lettuce is butterhead, tender and sweet, and when you pick it ten minutes before dinner it doesn't even need dressing. A little oil, a little vinegar, salt. That's it. The lettuce does the rest.

Helen says I write about food the way I taught Hemingway — short sentences, no adjectives I can avoid, and the belief that leaving things out is more powerful than putting things in. She's right, probably. Hemingway wrote about trout fishing and bullfighting and war. I write about lettuce. But the principle is the same: say what you mean, mean what you say, and trust the reader to fill in the silence. A salad is never just a salad. It's June. It's the garden. It's forty years of Helen kneeling in the dirt. It's everything that came before the plate.

David called to say Karen's doing well — the baby's due in July, and Karen is large and uncomfortable and handling it with the grace of a woman who's done this twice before and knows what's coming. Teddy keeps asking if the baby is a boy or a girl. They don't know. They didn't find out with the first two either. David says it's because they like surprises. I think it's because they're Bergstroms by marriage and Bergstroms don't peek.

I spent Saturday afternoon fixing the screen door. It's been hanging crooked since March, and Helen has mentioned it four times, which in Helen-language means I'm running out of time before she fixes it herself, and if Helen fixes the screen door I will never hear the end of it. So I fixed the screen door. The hinge was bent. I bent it back. Vermont home repair.

Salad for dinner again tonight. The lettuce won't last once the heat arrives. You eat what the garden gives you, when the garden gives it. There's a lesson in that. I've been retired a year and I'm just learning it.

The garden lettuce won’t wait for anyone—that much I’ve learned. With Karen close to her due date and the house feeling like everyone’s holding their breath, a simple salad felt like exactly the right dinner: no fuss, no fanfare, just good food while it’s there to be had. I threw some chicken on the grill to make it a proper meal, and honestly, it was one of the better things I’ve eaten this week.

Grilled Chicken Salad

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 6 cups butterhead or garden lettuce, torn (about 1 medium head)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 English cucumber, sliced thin
• 1/4 red onion, sliced thin
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Instructions

1. Heat the grill. Preheat a grill or grill pan over medium-high heat. Brush the grates lightly with oil.
2. Season the chicken. Pat chicken breasts dry and rub with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
3. Grill the chicken. Grill chicken for 6–7 minutes per side, until cooked through and internal temperature reaches 165°F. Let rest 5 minutes before slicing.
4. Make the dressing. Whisk together remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and a pinch of salt in a small bowl.
5. Build the salad. Arrange lettuce in a wide bowl or on a platter. Scatter tomatoes, cucumber, and red onion over the top.
6. Finish and serve. Slice chicken and lay over the salad. Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 27g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 6g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 320mg