Country Salad with Salmon & Asian Style Vinaigrettes

This was a salad that I prepared very quickly with my language classmates in Bordeaux. The humble ingredients from the farms so fresh that the taste in themselves were sweet, juicy and crunchy. Small red and yellow peppers, cherry tomatoes, greens, purple onions, and green grapes. The salad dressing was always a combination of my favorite: apart from the same extra virgin oil, vinegar (I usually like to mix a couple or three different kinds of vinegar just to enhance the layers of acidity). I then added honey and Japanese sweet soy sauce to bring out the layer of Asian umami taste. For the final layer of the perfume smell, I add chopped parsley, basil, and mint leaves. Right before serving, I like to toss the salad with a little bit of olive oil just to give it a little more shine, then add a little salt to season the ingredients. For me, this little step allows people to enjoy the raw taste of the ingredients more instead of pouring too much dressing in the dish right away. I used to be a “sauce” person when I was not aware too much of what I put in my body. For the young Frankie, every dish required extra salt and pepper. I put extra BBQ sauce in my steak, ketch up in my fries, I remember my friend was calling me, “the sauce lady” for a while. I was always feeling tired and this weight after heavy meals like that. It was not until I started to pay attention to the fact that, maybe my body do not “need” all these extra burdens. Instead of appreciating the taste of the real food, I was numbing my palates with the heavily seasoned sauces! As crazy as it sounds, this is still an eating habit that exists in many places. So, I would like to invite you to rethink about this tendency of habit with me.  After all, we need to ask ourselves, what is the most important nutrition source that our bodies require? The real food, or the excessive sauce?