THE SALAD BOOK: From Seed to Salad Bowl

This is really two books in one: first you grow them, from not to seed, then you bring festive mix-'n'-match combinations to the table. The gardening section includes a chapter on seed catalogues and key terms like vegetable ""bolting."" But the true novice will find Harrington's directions on planting, thinning, and soil preparation skimpy; consider this a quicky refresher course. She covers mainly green leafy things from cabbage to little-known spinach substitutes (Malabar spinach; New Zealand spinach) to watercress which, conventional wisdom apart, doesn't demand a running brook; tomatoes, a few crunchy vegetables, and a handful of herbs are also included. Once harvested, the produce is ingeniously combined into smorgasbords, herring, chicken, and fruit salads, with reasonable attention paid to a pleasing variety of textures and colors. But if you manage to grow this bounty, you'll have no trouble inventing your own tosses.