I’m supposed to like salads for a couple reasons. A) I’m a girl and girls like to be skinny. B) I live in Los Angeles and Angelenos like to be skinny. You would think this would produce strong salad longings deep within me, but I simply don’t gravitate toward them. I find most salads boring. That’s right salads of the world, BORING! If you were more interesting, I wouldn’t have to be so blunt and hurt your feelings like this. Not to say I haven’t met some really amazing salads before. Puran’s on Hillhurst makes an ahi tuna salad that I adore, and occasionally I’ll even find a salad recipe that has me saying mm-mmm out loud. But typically my response to a salad is: Why would I eat you, if I can eat something else?

Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to eat my Polenta Lasagna leftovers for lunch. As it turns out, this was not a good idea. Polenta Lasagna sat heavily in my stomach laughing loudly at the foolish notion that he was a lunch food. So when dinner came around, I wasn’t all that hungry, and Spinach Salad with Pears, Gorgonzola, and Walnuts was the only food I could imagine getting along with the polenta lasagna taking up way more than his fair share of space in my stomach.

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Adjustments: For the dressing, since I didn’t have honey Dijon mustard, I used regular Dijon and real, live honey, and I had to play with the dressing quantities before I got it to my liking. Instead of walnuts, I used spiced pecans that I had on hand. And instead of Gorgonzola (a fancy blue cheese), I used regular blue cheese. And I threw caution to the wind and skipped the endive altogether. Don’t hesitate to substitute dried cranberries for the pears too.

Assessment: This version won’t have me singing the praises of salads in the streets or anything, but I found it tasty and enjoyed the combination of flavors and textures—it’s got everything: sweet, sharp, pungent, crisp, and crunchy.