The Wedge Salad: Summertime Perfect

By Tracie Broom
July 20, 2013

It’s not the least labor-intensive salad in the world, but once you’re gathered around a table with friends for a midsummer lunch with cold white wine, its worthwhile-ness becomes quite apparent.

Once again, I borrow recipe tricks and inspiration from The Shop Tart, Anne Wolfe Postic. Can’t help it, y’all. We’re friends and we eat together a lot.

Iceberg Wedge Salad
Serves 6

1 lb. thick-cut bacon (local Caw Caw Creek is my fave)
2 big heirloom tomatoes
2 heads iceberg lettuce
1 bottle of blue cheese dressing from the produce dept. at the grocery store
1/8 to 1/4 lb. good gorgonzola or blue cheese (Rosewood Market has some great ones)
1 cucumber
Anything else you want to put on there

1.    Crisp up your bacon and cut it into 1/2-inch chunks.
2.    Dice your ‘maters and cucumbers into 1/2-inch cubes.
3.    Pour your bottled blue cheese dressing into a bowl and crumble at least 1/8 lb. fresh blue cheese into it, stirring well.  This is The Shop Tart’s party dip trick and it is really awesome.
4.    Cut the stem out of your iceberg heads, and then cut them into quarters with a good, sharp knife so that the edges stay sleek.
5.    If you are feeling pretentious like I was on a recent vacation, lay out your ingredients in attractive bowls for your guests to peruse, before you actually assemble the salads.
6.    Place a wedge in each bowl, cut sides up. NOT like pictured here. I placed one cut side down because I wanted the blue-cheese-dripping-off-of-a-cliff effect, but that’s not really the best way to get the dressing all down into the lettuce, now is it?
7.    Dollop at least 2 TBSP dressing onto each wedge.
8.    Sprinkle 1-2 TBSP each of tomato and cucumber onto the salad.
9.    Sprinkle at least 2 TBSP bacon to finish off the glory.
10.    Serve with cold white wine. Enjoy!

This weekly food column is curated by Tracie Broom, who serves on the board at Slow Food Columbia (http://www.slowfoodcola.org), publishes The Yum Diary (http://www.yumdiary.com), and is a founding partner at Flock and Rally: Events + Communications for a Brave New South (http://www.flockandrally.com). Follow her at @theyumdiary on Twitter.

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