Art, and Salad Tongs.

Food should be chosen to give pleasure, and to cheer up people after a hard day's work, to comfort them when they feel down for some reason, to amuse them when things seem a bit dull, or to open up conversation when they feel silent and uncommunicative...

Food should be served with real care as to the colour and texture on the plates, as well as with imaginative taste. This is where artistic talent and aesthetic expression and fulfilment come in... 

Food cannot take care of spiritual, psychological and emotional problems, but the feeling of being loved and cared for, the actual comfort of the beauty and flavour of food, the increase of blood sugar and physical well-being, help one to go on during the next hours better equipped to meet the problems (Edith Schaeffer, "Food," The Hidden Art of Homemaking). 

Miss Dotti makes superb salads.

And Miss Dotti is an artist.

I'm not sure that you would view her art and instantly know she makes superb salads.

But I am quite sure that you would view her salads and instantly know she creates art.

I probably don't need to say this, but being on the receiving end of one of (MANY of!) Miss Dotti's salads is a wonderful thing indeed. Each salad is a feast both for the tongue and for the eyes.

Zebby (3) trying very hard not to pick at the salad

And it tickles me that every time she brings one, the children "ooh" and "aah" over the different patterns. It is a well-established fact that one of them will say, "You sure can tell Miss Dotti is an artist when you look at her salads." 

They say it every time.

And it also tickles me to see which part of the salad will be their "favorite" part this time. Once it was radishes. I thought they were picking them out to discard; they were actually picking them out to eat first! The same child who asks one time to please pass the tomatoes on to the next sibling over will gobble up the tomatoes first thing in one of Miss Dotti's subsequent salads.

There's just no telling.

Miss Dotti is also a magician. She serves her salad on a very shallow glass platter. Upon first glance, I would say that her salad was half the size of one of my (lame, mostly greens, throw-some-dressing-on-there-and-call-it-salad) salads in my big glass bowl.

BUT. Her shallow plate holds the equivalent of TWO of my huge-glass-bowl salads. And the added bonus is that with every scoop, you get every single layer, all the goodies included.

They are exquisite masterpieces, every one.