Taylor Farms Organic Baby Spring Mix

I go through phases when it comes to salad.  Sometimes, I eat it a lot. Other times, I'm not interested.  I'll go through periods where I want a Pittsburgh salad and others where I want the salad from Olive Garden.  I've heaped my praises upon the classic blue-cheese wedge salad at Outback Steakhouse.  Until very recently, it was what I deemed to be the pinnacle of salad evolution.  While on vacation at Disney a couple weeks ago, the Outback salad was dethroned.  Now, a salad I had at Port Orleans Riverside on Walt Disney Property is my all time favorite salad.

It may not look like much, but 

it will blow your mind!

When I went grocery shopping on Saturday, I set out to gather the necessary ingredients.  Maybe not the most important component but definitely a building block, I needed the right greens.  My Disney salad was one where you picked what you wanted on it, and they made it for you.  They had a European mix there, so I was looking for something akin to that.  Enter Taylor Farms Organic Baby Spring Mix.*  I wasn't buying it because it was organic; I chose it because it was the only salad mix at Sam's Club that looked like what I had in my Disney salad.

I can neither confirm nor deny the claim

regarding delicious recipes.

Fast forward to today, Wednesday.  We had for lunch yesterday, so I had stead to cut up for the salad.  I prepped cucumbers and carrots too.  I dug out my little bag of craisins and the container of blue cheese crumbles.  I had the dressings, both ranch and strawberry viniagrette, sitting on the counter, next to the mixing bowl I was going to use to toss the salad.**  It was time for the lettuce.

Before I get into the quality of the salad mix, it is important that you realize that Taylor Farms' salad mix is the most gangster.  I'm taking my life into my own hands when I say anything unflattering about it.  It cut me when I hadn't even done wrong by it.  I didn't notice it at first.  It wasn't until I looked down and saw blood all over my hand that I realized what had happened.  In short, be careful with those plastic containers.

Now, let me refresh you as to the time-line.  I've bought salad mixes before, and they are usually good for a week or so.  Sometimes, they only hang on about five days.  For whatever reason, I expected the expensive mix that I bought at Sam's to still be good five days later.  When I pulled out the initial bowl of lettuce, everything was fine.  It was dry and fluffy.****  I made Mark's salad with no problems and sent him off to eat.

When I began pulling my lettuce out, I realized there was a problem.  It was disintegrating on my fingers.  Ew.  As I was already into the salad making process, I refused to give up.  I pulled out some of the leaves that were untouched and used them.  I appear to be fine, so I don't think it's going to kill me.*****  I didn't use any leaves that were in contact with the leaves that had lost their form, so to speak.  Needless to say, I threw out over half a container of spring mix.

I realize this may not be the fault of Taylor Farms.  I don't know how long Sam's Club had that lettuce, so I don't know what the shelf life is supposed to be.  Additionally, it did say on the package that the contents were only guaranteed fresh until the fifth, Monday.  No one wronged me in regards to this product, but I will be a bit more hesitant before buying it in the future.  Sadly, I'll probably opt for the bag salad mixes, as they seem to stay fresh a bit longer.******  If I know I'm having salad that day, maybe I'll give Taylor Farms another go.

*I only eat organic babies.

**Feel free to insert an inappropriate joke here.***

***Yes, I realized I used the word "insert".  Get your mind out of the gutter.

****I know fluffy is a weird adjective to assign to salad, but it works.

*****I'm sure we'll all be eating worse things when the zombie apocalypse comes.

******I use the term "fresh" loosely.