Lettuce Show You

When I was in the States, I got feedback that you enjoyed reading posts about how life is different here in Brazil. So, the other day as I was getting ready to wash lettuce, I thought I'd take some pictures and show you how this little task is done.

Here, there are no washed, cut, ready-to-go bags of salad, that's for sure! The lettuce here is straight from the ground, dirt still visible on it often. The women here wash their lettuce with great care since bacteria contamination is a real potential problem. I confess that at first I was very intimidated and mostly only served cooked vegetables to avoid the process and not worry about contaminating us with bacteria. After a while though, my friend who is a doctor showed me how she does this and I gave it a try and discovered it wasn't so hard! In fact, after a while you forget that in the States you can even buy prepared salads :) Here goes the how-to:

Step 1: By a stick of lettuce. Here, for some reason, lettuce is usually sold like this - several heads strung together. Lettuce-kebabs as I like to call them :)
Step 2: Fill a big bowl with water

Step 3: Pour in about a Tb of bleach

Step 4: Add in a small squirt of dish soap....not everyone does this but I like to

Step 5: Swish around until bubbly. While this swishing step is not required, it just makes me feel good like I really got the job done :)

Step 6: Chop off the bottom of the lettuce and dump the leaves in the bowl and let sit for 10 minutes or so

Step 7: Take each leaf and rinse if off...make sure you get anything weird looking like this brown twig off, as well as the bleach!

Step 8: Look at your bowl and notice how much brown dirt and the occasional bug is in the bottom. Feel good about keeping yourself and your husband safe from bacteria and good about feeding yourselves with fresh, fresh straight-from-the-garden produce!

Step 9: Let lettuce dry on a towel. You could use a salad spinner but I don't have one.

Step 10: The next steps are all about keeping your lettuce as fresh as possible for as long as possible so you don't have to wash lettuce too often! Line the bottom of a tupperware bowl with a few paper towels. This way, if the lettuce is still at all wet (which is always will be at least a little) the water wont make the leaves in the bottom of the bowl get nasty and mushy.

Step 11: Dump in your lettuce and stick a few more paper towels on top for extra security and seal well. Now, your lettuce is just like the bag kind! When you're ready to eat some, just open up and it's ready!