I feel like I'm revealing some deep, dark secret, but here goes: I microwave my salads.

Now, this isn't because I like my lettuce and carrots and salad dressing really hot, it's because of bacteria. I started doing this a couple of years ago, when we had all those recalls and scares involving pre-made bagged salads and spinach. I make my salad on a plate then zap it for about 20 seconds. Just enough to kill something but not make the salad get hot and shrivel.

Now, I have to stress that I have no idea if 20 seconds in the microwave will even do anything to destroy bacteria, but it makes me feel good anyway.

I now return you to your normal Slashfood posts.

Although it is still cold in many parts of the country, temperatures here in Southern California shot up to almost summer-like highs over the past few days. The sudden heat has cause me - and many others - to turn away from hot soup and "comfort food" cookbooks and turn back to salads and other cool, light fare. This salad is idea for moving from winter into spring, although you could make it all year round, because it incorporates fresh oranges, dried cranberries and salty-sweet candied nuts, all of which are frequently used in late fall and winter dishes and desserts. These sweet salad components are on a bed of mixed baby greens and diced avocado. I dressed the whole salad with a heavily vinegar-based dressing (a citrus flavored vinegar mixed with a bit of oil, salt and pepper) to enhance the brightness of all of the components.

We looked at a couple of spinach alternatives last week, but with the new warnings against lettuce, we're starting to reevaluate some of our salad options. After all, it is always good to have a backup plan, even though no one has become sick as a result of contaminated lettuce at this time. NPR has several suggestions for alternatives to typical salad greens. Their picks include arugula, baby bok choi, swiss chard, collard greens, watercress, cabbage and brussel sprout petals. Chef Patrick O'Connell came up with recipes for all of these alternatives, too.

The only potential drawback of this list is that most of the salads/sides are actually hot dishes, and not what you would necessarily expect to stand in for a pre-dinner salad. Fortunately, with fall and winter on the way, a warm salad can be very satisfying and this is a good opportunity to try a few new greens in a new way, such as Braised Baby Bok Choy or Brussel Sprout Petals with Coriander Vinaigrette.

[Thanks, Jose!]

Bagged greens usually state that they are pre-washed and ready to eat on their labels, but that doesn't mean that they are edible. In their most recent issue, Consumer Reports tested several types of bagged salad mixes for the "yuck factor," the phrase that they used to describe the percentage of the "ready to eat" greens that were wilted or otherwise inedible. It turned out that there was a lot of yucky stuff. Out of the 62 bags that they meticulously tested, inedible greens ranged from .5% to 83% of the salads and "the vast majority had 'off' odors, smelling like rotten vegetables, sauerkraut or chlorine... [or] imitation crab meat." Needless to say, they recommended buying greens and making your own salad mixes, or at least washing the bagged greens before eating them. Besides, as they rightly point out, it is less expensive to chop up your own lettuce - especially if you're going to have to throw away a portion of the bagged stuff that isn't as fresh as it should be.

Spinach salads are out for the moment, unless you feel like taking chances that even restaurants aren't willing to. Supermarkets are reporting a big drop in salad sales, but there is no reason to cut all greens out of your diet along with spinach. Now is the perfect time to experiment with some non-spinach salad greens. Some alternatives include:

• Mâche - delicate, sweet and slightly nutty. It resembles a cross between young spinach and a tender lettuce.
• Arugula - peppery and sharp. This green makes a great background for salads with sweet fruits or mild nuts in them
• Chard - tender and sweet when cooked. Chard is a great alternative for spinach in cooked dishes (unless you opt for frozen spinach, which the USDA says is still safe to eat at the moment).
• Dandelion Greens - sharper and more bitter than arugula. These are best when mixed with other greens, but choose smaller, more delicate leaves for salads

Romaine and iceberg lettuces can always stand in for other greens in salads, too, and can be a nice base for a salad when experimenting with other greens, particularly bitter greens.

A 20-year old Celtic supporter in Scotland is very devoted to his team and has taken his devotion far beyond the standards set be even the most die-hard tailgaters. He has vowed to eat only foods that are in the club's colors for the 2006/2007 season, meaning that he has eaten a diet of salad, green vegetables and white meat (mostly chicken and a little fish) since July.

Clearly, the young man, Scott Campbell, is lucky that there are actually quite a few foods that come in green and white. Had the team colors been blue and silver, he would have been wise to come up with another way to express his loyalty.

Does anyone else have any other dedication-through-food stories, or is Campbell the only one who has taken it this far?

I've read any number of pieces waxing rhapsodic about collard greens cooked the soul food way - about how delicious was the "pot likker" (I've really seen it spelled that way! honest!), about how wonderful the house smelled when you set the smoked pork products to cooking. About how nothing says comfort like the rich, tender, porky piles of essential vitamins and minerals. I doubted, but I figured I must be missing out on something really great. So, on slow cooking day, I set out to make soul food-style greens.

Neither my expensive Italian market nor my lower-priced supermarket had smoked ham hocks (and I was secretly relieved!) but they did have suggestion #2: smoked pork neck.

Here's how the recipe goes: you boil the smoked pork neck in several cups' water for hours until it's falling off the bone. I used one pound, although most recipes call for two. You clean, destem, and chop lots of collards - three to five bunches. I used three. You combine the mess and let it cook, stirring occasionally, until the collards are tender. Salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste.

I just don't love this. I didn't enjoy the smell, and I really could barely finish my serving of collards. My mom liked them, and so did a friend who's into soul food. Everyone else looked at them askance. I'll keep cooking collard greens - but I think I'm going to stick to my Mediterranean-inspired version.

[Photo Sarah Gilbert. And disclaimer: I totally stole the title idea from Love My Crock]

Don't think that slamming one of these $3 green juices at the deli is going to satisfy that measuring cup-crazed nutritionist in the back of your mind. And here's something else: raw fresh vegetables and fresh fruit don't mix. Eat them at the same time and you are asking for trouble… gastric, gaseous trouble. I remember temping at this ad agency about ten years ago; it was lunch time and I was about to eat my random assemblage from the Chinese salad bar deli next door: fresh strawberries, big vegetarian sushi roll, and fresh, raw broccoli. A visiting hippie chick friend of mine, the sort who has read Diet for a New America all the way through, gave me a look of concern as she and my co-worker went out to lunch. When they came back she took one look at my pale, agonized, bloated face and told me she had been worried about my mixing all through her lunch, and that I should never mix raw fruit and vegetables in the same meal.

She was a hippie nutritionist chick, and she knew.

Whenever I visit a farmer's market, or browse through the goodies at my local organic food store in the spring or summer, I am drawn to the greens like flies to ripe fruit. From the olive drab of the collard to the Rainbow-Brite stalks of chard, I love them all. I bring them home, their broad, thick leaves taking up most of the space in my brown paper bag, and my husband sighs. I'm making him eat his veggies.

But oh, what veggies! Properly cooked, greens can act as a base for flavor, much like pasta or potatoes, but way, way better for your heart, your waistline, your cancer risk - everything, really. Owen at Tomatilla! describes his method for preparing greens today, which is really very similar to mine. He adds in lemon juice where I choose vinegar, uses soy sauce instead of kosher salt, and doesn't find garlic mandatory (I do). Here's how: