Situation Avoided

Today, Mark and I were enjoying the day, lunching outside. The city had cleared out for the long weekend, and absence of foot and road traffic brought an uncanny silence. The sun was high and bright, and there was a perfect breeze. Little birds jumped from branch to branch and we could hear their nervous twittering.

Perhaps in response to a big Italian dinner the night before, we were feeling the need to be healthy: a heaping Cobb salad for me, a veggie burger for him. Then I said, ‘I wonder how come they named it a Cobb salad. I think ‘cobb’ means rooster.’

‘No, it’s named after a guy.’

‘Hm.’

‘I saw it on the Food Network. A guy named Cobb made it up late one night when someone came into the restaurant. The kitchen was closed, so he took whatever there was – chicken, blue cheese, tomato, whatever...mixed it up and it was a hit. So they named it a Cobb Salad ’

‘They should have named it after the other guy,’ I said.

He scrunched up his face.

‘Imagine if the customer came in the next night. There’d be a whole different set of ingredients for the salad.’

He shook his head.

‘Really, the salad depended much more on the guy who came into the restaurant.’

‘It’s named after the cook’, he said. ‘Things are always named after whomever invents the thing. That’s how it’s done.’

But before a skirmish could start, we decided to lay down our weapons. It was simply too nice a day.