I can’t resist. I have explained my new salad fixation; so yes, Brian and I have been eating quite a lot of them lately. And the latest incarnation, is my favorite type of salad to make: a very green, non-lettuce variety, enriched with imported tuna, packed in olive oil. Fresh, rich, the 3 Bean Salad of my dreams.

How could I not make a 3 Bean Salad when these beautiful, bright pink, shelling, or cranberry beans were lying in piles at the market? They were calling me to take them home, peel off their racy outer coat, and simmer to my heart’s content.

But 3 Bean Salad? How gauche. And salad again? Well, you might say that I am a bit homesick; and you can blame the fixation on heredity. You see the fixations with food are nothing out of the ordinary for my father. I guess you could say he is a creature of habit. Some may call it repetition, but my father just calls it routine. The food fixations have been rather simple. Sliced white sandwich bread, never toasted, yet slathered with butter, or in the summer, fresh, ripe tomatoes sprinkled with salt and a grinding of pepper, and in the winter, soups made almost into stews, by crumbling in soda crackers, and letting them set and soak up the broth, all of these things have at one time or another been a part of his routine.

And yes, he too had a salad fixation, and a 3 Bean Salad fixation at that. But dad’s three beans came strictly from the deli. Garbanzo, kidney, and green beans, drowning in a sea of vinegary brine, were de rigueur just a few short years ago. As much as I love my dad, and miss him now that we live 3,000 miles apart, his 3 Bean Salad, kind of turned my stomach. But the bourgie 3 Bean Salad I could do.

Fresh fava beans, cranberry beans, and green beans, cut into bite-sized pieces, were all cooked and prepared individually. Toss in some croutons, fresh from the oven, chunks of the tuna, and a lemony Dijon vinaigrette (heavy on the acids), and there you have my 3 Bean Salad. I guess when it comes to salads, in theory, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.