A magical lunch for one, with a side of lagniappe

A perk of having grown (or nearly grown) children is when they move to cool places, you get to visit them.

A year ago, our daughter moved to Tampa, Florida, for grad school.

We went to visit her shortly after she arrived to help get her settled.

We stayed in a then brand new hotel in downtown Tampa.

We ate in the hotel’s restaurant for our first meal there.

So perfect that I couldn’t stop talking about how much I loved that salad.

It had a variety of greens, vegetables and toasted quinoa, an avocado mousse and a shishito pepper vinaigrette.

I thought about the salad all the way home, plotting how I would recreate it.

I bought the dark quinoa. I experimented with figuring out how to make it cooked and simultaneously crispy.