Travelling Spoons: N is for....Salad Nicoise

A restaurant in Paris that serves the Salad Nicoise, as you can see on the
board in the background.

Salad Nicoise.....the first time I had Salad Nicosie was in London. While visiting my aunt and uncle they took us out to a French restaurant. We had an excellent evening and the food was delicious. A few days later we headed off to France and I was reluctant to order anything else when I would see that on the menu. However, always one looking to broaden my experiences, I don't think I actually order it in France, but nothing that I did order made quite the impression on me that the Salad Nicoise did. That is not to say I did not have any other good food, as I had a delicious pizza one evening, which was all the better because the Colonel Mustard and I navigated the menu and ordered with the small amount of French that we were in possession of at the time...and trust me that is not much, and had several marvelous picnics prepared by our host, as well as some fabulous escargot. And though, I would never say they were favorites of mine, had just enough steak tartare and bone marrow to say I have had them before. It is just that the Salad Nicoise is something I came home saying, "I'm going to make that."
Well, that may be the case, but it will have been two years ago this month and today was my first attempt at it....and that out of necessity of "N". Vanilla Bean had quickly picked up after the Colonel on "M" and wasn't quite ready to delve into the Norwegian Lefse she had planned and I had the day at my leisure and was able to scrounge around most of the ingredients...so with the return of spring came my tasty Salad Nicoise. I had most of the ingredients I would have liked...but not quite and as I was reluctant to go out...my salad ended up with canned green beans, so I will have to make it again when I have fresh beans as well as spring greens - but my boston lettuce worked out just fine. Strangely enough, I had olives and capers on hand, mostly because i had gotten the ingredients to make the salad before and hadn't gotten to it and used the other items I collected for various other recipes, but these to items still remained waiting for the day I would make my Salad Nicoise.