I have to admit I ate my first ritual asparagus of the season dipped in commercial caesar dressing, in between bites of delivery pizza. Fortunately, I steamed the whole bunch, and you know what that means: ASPARAGUS LEFTOVERS. This meant my second ritual asparagus was instantly ready for me to throw into a salad mesmerizing in its beauty.

This kind of salad works best when you have a number of cold cooked vegetables hanging around. Besides asparagus, I had boiled beets and a big container of carrot salad. I also had some renegade lettuces spontaneously growing in the pots on the balcony, which was convenient.

Salad mesmerizing in its beauty

lettuce
cooked beets
steamed asparagus
carrots (or leftover carrot salad)
red onion
cream cheese (or goat, etc.)
salt, pepper
a good vinaigrette (such as this one)

It's a salad; you know what to do.

- Wash and chop lettuce.
- Peel and slice beets; cut asparagus into chunks; finely slice or shred carrots; mince red onion.
- Arrange all vegetable elements nicely on a plate of your choosing.
- Break up some bits of cheese and scatter over your salad.
- Add salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of decent vinaigrette.
- Eat it all.

Voila! A salad.

I was particularly satisfied with the mixture of solid wintry elements (beets, carrot) and fresh springy elements (asparagus, baby lettuce).

If you still have more leftover asparagus, you can scramble it with some egg and red onion and eat it wrapped up in a toasty flatbread. You can also drink tea.