What the salad bowl has joined together

Many years ago, long before I was old enough to care about such things, my mother told me that she didn’t like escarole. It didn’t mean much at the time. I didn’t even know what esca­whatever was, nor, for that matter, why anyone would have an opinion about it. It was one of those wisps of information that blow through a childhood like tumbleweeds – quiet, aimless, a part of the background –