Salad Bar Glory

It's amazing what pleasure there can be in certain simple things.  In Japan, it's kinako,mred bean paste, and hotel breakfasts.  But today, in America, I twice received and remembered the glory of salad bars.  Oh those blessed long counters in restaurants filled with fresh vegetables and different greens, various mixed salads, toppings, fruits.  And at the end a stack of plates, waiting to be filled in whatever way you desire.  It is decidely unJapanese; large heaps of food with no packaging to restrict the intake, multiple person contact with a single plate, free choice of ingredients, paying by the plate or by weight or just all-you-can-eat.  Oh the glory of salad bars, how I missed them and not even realized it.  But I'm happy to have their absence filled.  A lovely balance for the tiny dishes of carefully prepared food in Japanese restaurants, of vegetables in plastic bags in the grocery market, a world away in the land of plentiful greens.