So this one time I made this chicken and then had a ridiculous amount of grapes and olives left over. After the chicken was long gone, I still had to come up with some sort of lunch for work, you know, all adult-like. I stole some baby spinach from the boyfriend and a salad was born. Paired it with some hard boiled eggs for the protein factor and voila! Lunch! I wish it was always that easy.

We’ve got punchy, salty, fermenty olives, sweet black grapes, spicy pepperoncinis, more salty but creamy feta, crunchy toasted sunflower seeds, and a hefty squeeze of puckery lemon.

You couldn’t have more flavors and textures going on at once, and it is damn pleasing.

Being both a supertaster and a recovering sectional eater, I never would have thought that a salad such as this would ever grace my plate.

Supertaster? Huh? Yea, it totally exists and helped to explain much of my life prior to learning about it. Over the years, I’ve been able to train my palate to be more accepting of overpowering flavors --- anything fermented, vinegar, red onion, any and all things anise flavored, bitter, sour, sweet, salty --- everything is just more intense. I’m better with textures than I used to be, but I didn’t eat avocado for the better part of two decades because I couldn’t get over the weird butteriness of it. And until I was about 21, nothing . could . touch . I was a big fan of things “on the side.”

While I am still able to find that ONE piece of stray arugula that snuck it’s way into my salad bar romaine, LOATHE, I’ve gotten better! I could drink my homemade vinegar based dressings, I pickled red onions this summer, and I’ve come a long way in the mixing and matching of meals. You can look for no further proof than this salad.

Spinach Salad with Grapes & Olives

Ingredients:

8 ounces spinach

1 cup mixed pitted olives, halved

1 cup red or black seedless grapes, halved

¼ cup crumbled feta

¼ cup sunflower seeds

2 to 3 pepperoncini peppers, sliced

juice of half a lemon

good drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Assemble spinach, olives, grapes, feta, sunflower seeds, and pepperoncinis in a large serving bowl.

Squeeze the half of the lemon over the top of the salad (or like, be responsible, and do this in separate bowl to avoid rogue seeds), give a good drizzle of olive oil over top, and then do salt and pepper to taste. Go light on the salt at first due to the feta and olives, don’t want it to get too salty.

Toss all ingredients until well combined.

Serves 6 as a starter or side