An Ode to the Salad Spinner

An Ode to the Salad Spinner
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Nicolas Jammet

2014-01-03-saladspinner.jpg

Family time growing up meant putting on a suit and eating at La Caravelle, the restaurant my parents ran in New York. It was one of those places that defined French cuisine for a lot of Americans: Dover sole, soufflé. And my parents loved to get my two brothers and me involved in the kitchen at home. Since my mom couldn't exactly hand a knife to a five-year-old, she would let me use the salad spinner. We had a pull-string model, and I'd always want to make that thing spin really fast and then stop it.

The food at home was simple and rustic, and we ate the salad at the end of the meal--right before dessert. From time to time, my mom, who is Lebanese, would make fattoush, but usually it was just a classic French lettuce salad with mustard or balsamic vinaigrette. I learned then that the start of any successful salad is super-dry lettuce. This is so the dressing can stick to it.

As I got older, the spinner became a staple in my kitchen--and not just because I opened a salad restaurant. Especially if you're working with lettuces like romaine, it gets rid of moisture without bruising or crushing the leaves. (At Sweetgreen, we have these big, hand-cranked industrial ones.) And I always spin twice: Spin once, dump the water, then spin a second time to get it extra dry.

The salad spinner hasn't been innovated on much over the years, but I think that speaks to its pure, utilitarian function--and to how well it works. Sure, you could always use a paper towel or a dishcloth to dry your lettuce, but this is a lot more fun--and effective.

Nicolas Jammet co-founded Sweetgreen with his friends Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neman in 2007.

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE