"Salad before pizza the day after salad before burgers. That's big."

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Wednesday Robyn and I headed over to New York's Gramercy Tavern because we got the word that their chef Michael Anthony, one of my favorite cooks anywhere, was serving a burger that he and his staff had been developing for weeks. That's big news in and of itself, but the bigger news for serious diet followers is that I actually finished the salad that accompanied the burger before I attacked the juicy ground meat patty in earnest.

You heard me! I ate the salad first! Who would have thunk it? Salad before burgers? Is that like pearls before swine?

Maybe I have actually learned something about how and what to eat. Wouldn't that be something? You want to hear something else? I actually did the same thing at a pizzeria the next day.

Yup, that's right. We had a business lunch at Jim Lahey's pizzeria Co., and our hosts graciously let me do the ordering. I ordered five pizzas for the eight people seated at our table, along with four salads.

The salads came first, and some serious eaters might not be aware that master bread baker Lahey is a superb salad creator, much like his pieman brethren Chris Bianco at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.

One salad was just called "Green Salad" on the menu:

Shaved zucchini, mint, basil, lemon, olive oil, sea salt, parmesan (I finally got it: everything in the salad except for the parmesan is green). The other was a special sucrine salad, sucrine lettuce, avocado, blackberries, corn, radish, heirloom cherry tomatoes dressed with a spicy vinaigrette.

They were both amazing. Even more amazing was the fact that I kept eating salad even after the pizzas arrived at our table. Salad before pizza the day after salad before burgers. That's big.

Weigh-In

After last week's big weigh-in, I knew that this week was going to be a particular struggle. Interim weigh-ins reflected that struggle. But maybe the salads and all the fantastic local tomatoes I've been eating (haven't the tomatoes been amazing this year?) as snacks will mitigate some of the damage caused by the newly opened Blue Smoke Bakery sending us an entire basket of goodies.

Here we go: 220. Up a pound from last week. I think I have lots more salad days ahead of me. You know what? That's OK with me.