Quinoa
Salad

High summer. One o'clock. The sun sitting directly overhead like a supervisor who doesn't trust you.

I had come alone, which a woman should do now and then. No partners. No scorecard. Just me, a ball, and a practice ritual: lag putts from the back of the 9th at PopStroke Wesley Chapel, forty feet across a tier, trying to die the ball within a putter's length of the cup. Again. And again. A monk of the uphill roll.

By the twentieth attempt I had found something close to peace, and something very close to sunburn.

I retreated to the patio and ordered the Quinoa Salad, because I wanted to feel the way the green looked: cool, bright, alive.

It arrived like a farmers market that had been to finishing school. Quinoa, nutty and light. Avocado. Carrots. Roasted corn, sweet with a little char. Red onion for edge. Cotija cheese, salty and crumbly. Tomato. A tumble of peppery arugula. A citrus vinaigrette that tasted like opening a window. And a balsamic glaze, dark and glossy, swirled across the top like a signature on a contract.

The best quinoa salad I have ever eaten. Each bite cooler than the last.

I went back out afterward. First putt, forty feet, uphill. It stopped six inches short. I've never been happier to miss.