If you’re interested you can Google® Via Carota. You’ll learn the restaurant in New York City’s West Village prides itself in offering simple Italian fare. But don’t mistake the word ‘simple.’ It really isn’t.

One of the establishment’s signature dishes is Insalata Verde. It’s a combination of lettuces and a special dressing. There are no onions, no tomatoes, no cukes, no other ingredient in this salad. But it does use five kinds of lettuce. Arugula and field greens, my least favorite, are not among them.

The process is far more complicated than that of Chef Briwa (See yesterday’s blog.) It isn’t something I’d do every evening. But it IS interesting.

The salad calls for five kinds of lettuce: Boston or bib, romaine, Belgian endive, watercress, and frisee. (For two people this amount of lettuce is overwhelming; obviously in a restaurant environment, it isn’t.) Then there’s the three-water bath with no ice cubes involved.

You wash the greens and fill a container with tepid water. Depending on the lettuce you do certain trimming before dropping it into the water. Next you wash all the lettuces in cool water and a third time in cold water. (That’s a lot of water!) The next step is to spin the lettuce and wrap it in a clean cloth.

I made this salad and its special dressing recipe only once. There was no doubt it was delicious, but it was a lot of work. So, for every day, I’m clinging to Chef Briwa’s approach. An ice bath for the lettuce is now my go-to.

I like lettuce . . .fresh, crisp, crunchy lettuce.

Growing up, I ate it with most suppers, as my Mother was an avid believer in salads. Iceberg was her go-to. But over the years, I’ve gravitated to other kinds, except arugula. And field greens.

Recently I finished an online course in Mediterranean cuisine taught by Chef Bill Briwa (1957-2018). He was a professor of culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America, and his course, titled “The Joy of Mediterranean Cooking” was a fascinating Cook’s Tour of the cuisine of such places as Italy, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Istanbul, and France.

But of the sixteen episodes, the one that stuck with me was about lettuce. Until the Chef taught me otherwise, I always washed my lettuce when I brought it home from the supermarket. Perhaps that’s because it was my Mother’s habit before it was mine.

But Chef Briwa said that was a no-no. “Never wash your lettuce until you’re ready to use it,” he instructed. When it’s time to prepare the meal, start with the lettuce. Wash it in a bowl of water; then add a couple cups of ice cubes to the bowl and refrigerate. Move on to the rest of the meal preparation.

I tried this method, and it produced the most wonderful lettuce, even when it went into the drink in a limp condition. It always came out fresh, crisp, and crunchy. In addition, I had a chilled salad bowl in which to serve my salad. You do have to dry the bowl first though.

If you think lettuce deserves only one blog, you’re wrong. Tomorrow I’ll write about Via Carota, an Italian restaurant in the West Village (NYC) that has an unusual take on lettuce.

Tonight is my book club meeting, and the current selection is The Art of the Restaurateur by Nicholas Lander, a food critic for Financial Times for many years. The book was written in 2012, and it showcases premier restaurants around the world and what they’re noted for.

The 20 restaurants are all high-end for the most part, although the creator of Shake Shack makes an appearance; but it’s possibly because he owns and operates high end establishments too.

I liked the book a lot. It taught me about the behind-the-scenes activities of restaurants, and it made me think of my own experience with dining out. Give me a white tablecloth and real napkins, perhaps a menu in French, and a server who’s dressed to the nines. It’s my idea of the evening’s entertainment. I reason that if I’m willing to spend money for a great seat in a theatre or concert venue, that same amount can provide an equally great dining experience instead.

I assume restaurateurs like that point of view.