I love to indulge, but every now and then, I have to temper myself. Or as the French would say, “économiser.” I first learned that phrase when I was studying abroad in France and we would have lots of red wine with dinner. I’d start laughing and talking even more than I usually do, and my one teacher told me, “économise-toi.” Which roughly translates into, “pace yourself.”

I’m a big believer in just going at things full throttle, but sometimes, the rational part of my brain takes over. It tells me to do useful things, like eat a salad.

That’s what happened to me yesterday. I was *slightly* carb’ed out from my eating extravaganza in Chicago and I needed to decompress. Plus, I had a bunch of leftover goat cheese from Baetje Farms in the fridge.

My go-to salad in grad school was spinach with golden raisins, poached egg, lemon and goat cheese. I like the way the egg yolk mixes with the lemon juice to make dressing. I didn’t have golden raisins yesterday, though, so I used green grapes.

As it turns out, it’s a great substitution. The green grapes are juicier than the golden raisins so they add more flavor to the salad. I also like the way they taste with the slightly smoky toasted almonds. The combination almost makes you forget that you’re eating a salad, which is how I measure how good a salad is.

Anyway. Make this salad immediately. Also, listen to this song. Like the salad, it’s classic and it will make you feel like everything’s okay, even though a spray tanned sociopath is trying to build a wall between the U.S.A. and Mexico and is alienating most of the world’s democratic leaders.

Spinach Salad with Green Grapes (from me, to you)

Ingredients

1 cup baby spinach leaves
1/4 cup toasted almonds
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
1/4 cup green grapes, sliced in half
juice from 1 lemon
1 egg, poached
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

Place the spinach leaves, almonds, goat cheese and grapes in a medium bowl. Squeeze juice from half of the lemon on top and let sit while you cook the egg.

Poach the egg. Place it on top of the salad and squeeze juice from the other half of the lemon on top. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!