For eight years, starting in the late 1970s, I worked aboard research ships and tugboats, first as an able-bodied seaman and then as a merchant marine officer.

Because we'd be at sea for 2 to 4 weeks, the galley crew was keenly aware that food was an important part of shipboard life. Sunday was prime rib day, Wednesday was steak day, and once a month (if we were working in the tropics) the cooks served a roast pig on the upper deck, complete with the apple in its mouth. (I can't remember what they filled the eye holes with.) Each dinner was paired with a salad.

Notice I didn’t say "green" salad, because at the end of a 4-week trip the lettuce looked anemically white. Yet, the stewards managed to keep lettuce from going bad by packing each head in a brown paper bag before storing them in the walk-in coolers.

Perhaps that explains why, when I switched my focus from the sea to the land, I placed lettuce at the top of my To Grow list -- even though I'd never grown it, or anything else. By late summer, the plants had bolted to 3-foot towers and when I finally got around to picking some greens they were so bitter we couldn't eat them.

What am I getting at?   more »