Everywhere you go lately, you get a mound of lettuce with dressing on the side when you order a salad. Since when are greens and a few unchopped tomatoes or cucumber considered a salad? The goal of a salad is to get a taste of each ingredient in a bite. Isn’t the chop, dice, or chiffonade preparation required to do so?

Restaurants appear to have given up on this goal and don’t even give you a big enough plate for you to toss it yourself. Shame on you! Go back to culinary school or take salads off your menu if you are going to be that lackluster about them. I realize I should expect this when ordering a salad at a burger joint. That’s like ordering a burger at a Mexican restaurant. But this is happening everywhere and it’s summer when all the most delicious salad fixins are all over. Get inspired!

Just to make it look like this is not a complete rant, here are a few words of inspiration:

• Try making an apricot, goat cheese, and arugula salad to get the combo of sweet, salty, and pepper in one bite
• Mix sweet mango with something spicy like Cajun or chipotle chicken
• Watermelon salads are the cure for thirst so match it with dry feta, salty olives, red onion, and basil or mint
• Cherries can be dark and rich so toss them with nutty salty walnuts, almonds, or pistachios and equally rich butter lettuce