I’m dying for a salad. Any kind of salad – Greek, Caesar, Cobb (sans egg), spinach, mesclun… At this point I’d attack a wedge of iceberg like it was an apple and I was a starving rabbit.

I can still taste Christo’s Famous Greek Salad

True confession: I actually mewled when I passed by the salad bar at Whole Foods the other day. Never, EVER did I think that would happen to me given the decades of forced salad bar eating. And how did that work out for me? Um, as you know, not well.

It’s been a month and four days since my gastric sleeve surgery. Yes, I’m losing weight – and damn happy about it — but who wouldn’t drop pounds on 600 calories a day? Right now, protein is king. I begin the day with a Nectar high protein shake followed by small amounts of protein (i.e. Chobani 100 vanilla yogurt and Cabot 75% Reduced Fat Cheddar) throughout the rest of the day.

Trouble is, my stomach won’t tolerate “soft proteins” such as chicken, some fish, ground turkey or beans. And until my hinky, albeit smaller, tummy gets used to those proteins, I cannot add raw vegetables or fruit into my diet. You’d think I’d be happy about this, right?

(Don’t even start with me about that carbohydrates-filled food terrorist known as bread. I need to breathe into a paper bag when I find myself in a known terrorist hot spot like a bakery, but that’s another blog post.)

On Father’s Day last Sunday, I made a “steakhouse” dinner for the dads – marinated and grilled sirloin tips — a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s “Summer Grilling” issue (thumb’s up, BTW) — served with oven-baked steak “fries” and a big chopped salad.

I went for the chopped salad for two reasons. First, my brother refuses to eat iceberg lettuce because of its low nutritional value so the traditional steakhouse bleu cheese wedge sprinkled with bacon was a no-go.

Traditional steakhouse salad

He’s a dad, so in the spirit of Father’s Day, what’s a girl to do? Secondly, I had coveted my aunt’s chopped salad at the Capital Grille in Providence the other night. I swear it called to me as I sat next to her. #getinmybelly

Chopped salad is a time-consuming task. Thankfully, I only had to prepare it for 7 people. The ingredients are simple. I used multi-colored cherry tomatoes, a few mini English cucumbers, Vidalia onion, red and yellow peppers, drained and washed chickpeas, and romaine lettuce. Two things to remember: Use a sharp chef’s knife, and don’t chop the chickpeas. In fact, all the salad fixings should be cut as small as a chickpea.

Chop, chop. chop! Add romaine and toss with vinaigrette. (Photo by domesticate-me.com)

I would have added chopped black olives – we had some left over from the antipasto we had as a starter — but my husband loathes them. True, he’s not a dad, but his wife is desperate for him to eat his greens even if she cannot. And if we didn’t have the platter of antipasto with its tasty provolone, I would have added little cubes of cheese to the salad.

The vinaigrette was easy to put together in a glass jar: 3 parts Italian extra virgin olive oil to 1 part red wine vinegar, 1 minced garlic clove, 2 or 3 tsp. of Dijon mustard, ½ tsp. each of dried thyme, basil and oregano, kosher salt and black pepper to taste. Then shake.

If you get carried away like I did, marinate chicken breasts in the extra dressing, grill them, put them atop a chopped salad with some avocado — and count your blessings. Sob.