Belgian endive and beets in salad

Salade d'endives aux betteraves is a salad that would also be very good made with iceberg lettuce. The beets go well with a crispy, slightly bitter lettuce like iceberg, endive, chicory (escaroble, scarole), or curly endive (frisée). It's a classic combination in France.

The dressing is a vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar and either olive or a neutral vegetable oil, plus salt and and a generous grind of black pepper. Some diced shallot is good with the beets. You can use a different vinegar — balsamic, for example, brings out the sweetness of the beets and complements the bitterness of the greens.

Another addition that dresses up the salad is some toasted walnuts or pecans. And if you're adding those, you might want to put some walnut or hazelnut oil in the dressing to perk up the vegetable oil.

We've been eating salads like this all week because Belgian endive is such a good buy at the supermarket right now. Endives are going for just over a euro per kilo, or about 60 cents a pound, at Intermarché. I like them raw in salad, but also braised in butter and lemon juice as a cooked vegetable.

Another, completely different and more elaborate salad is the same Belgian endive (or iceberg lettuce) with toasted walnuts, a diced apple, and some little cubes of cheese — either Cheddar, Swiss (Comté or Gruyère), or Gouda. If you like it, use Roquefort or another blue cheese. And make the dressing with some garlic and cider vinegar, as well as a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. We've had that version a couple of times this past week too, since Walt got some good eating apples (pommes à croquer) at SuperU.

This is The Weather Channel's forecast for our village this week, viewed on my

Android tablet computer in Fahrenheit.

Temperatures are finally back above freezing this morning, but you can't quite call it a heat wave. Rain is supposed to start later today, or maybe in the evening, and last all week. The good news is that temperatures are going to be spring-like by Thursday.