The salad bar tub

I've been terrible about reading the weather this season, and as a result it seems to always catch me by surprise. Case in point: today. Was it supposed to snow again? I'm flummoxed.

And as it turned out, I forgot to bring lunch. Thankfully, there is a small restaurant in my building and they have a fairly extensive salad bar (hot and cold).  As I was filling my container, I noted an "attendant", watching and waiting diligently to bring anything new that was needed. I used to have that job myself, back in the day. While I was still in college, for summers I would come home and stay with my Grandma, who worked as head cook at a restaurant in town. It was themed sort of: the restaurant was in the cafeteria of a school that had closed down and been converted to a craft mall. The decor: country tacky. The food: brilliant buffet, down home and homemade. Six days a week, my Grandma cooked everything herself: soups, breads, five different kinds of old fashioned salads, mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch, roast beef, ham...and the list goes on. I was a soux chef of sorts when I worked with her. I would get up at 3:30am and drive her to work, then come back at 5:30 to start my day. I would prepare immaculate presentations of coleslaw, potato salad, stewed apples, pickled beets, tropical fruit salad, marshmallow salad, cucumbers and tomatoes.

At 10:30am every morning, I would begin to present the salad bar, which was served in an antique

claw-foot tub. I would fill it with ice from the bar, then place very artistically antique bowls filled with the brilliant foodstuffs I had prepared. I was so proud of my work and frequently received raves from the owners for my attention to details. The potato salad would be sprinkled with paprika and then adorned with paper-thin slices of bell pepper. The stewed apples had a rose made from apple peel. The marshmallow salad would have concentric rings of maraschino cherries decorating the top. And then -- very old-fashioned now in retrospect -- every bowl was under laid with endive lettuce. The effect was a chilly green field, sprinkled with jewels to be tasted.

When the restaurant opened at 11:30am, my job was to watch the entire line of food to be sure it was always filled and presentable. I would stand at attention for hours with my starched, white apron and a clean dishtowel handy for spills. The only problem: the restaurant didn't do any business. It was set in an out of the way location and most of the people who wandered in took a look at the tacky decor and wandered away again.

But only after marveling at my beautiful, salad bar tub.