referral culture & a fantastic greek salad

I used to work in corporate recruiting for a national insurance company.  I really enjoyed recruiting.  I mean, despite the fact that it is a soul-sucking, incredibly demanding, pull-your-hair out career, man, you can really have a lot of fun doing it.  No other career I've had so far aside from being a parent has ever challenged me or been as rewarding as my time spent as a recruiter.  But it is easy to look back on it and have the warm and fuzzies when I'm not in a cubicle, banging my head against the wall because I have to recruit 36 students by September (AND WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE WEARING AFFLICTION SHIRTS TO INTERVIEWS?!) I digress.

One of the more influential things I learned from recruiting was the importance of cultivating a referral culture.  The basic virtue of a referral culture is that some of the best ideas and moreover the best candidates from people a person networks with, people a person trusts and respects.  I would trade five solid referrals from one of my top interns for a hundred cold-sourced resumes mined from campus databases.

This blog has a referral culture, kids.  If you've never interacted with me before (or even if you have,) I don't expect that you have established a trust or healthy respect for me or what I do.  It's cool if we're not there yet.  By reading this, you're at least giving me an opportunity to prove myself and for that I am grateful.

Moving along, I spend time on Pinterest every day.  Pinterest has a referral culture.  You follow the people you have interest in, persons that probably have similar likes and interests and from time to time, you re-pin stuff those pinners pin because you think, "Hey, if so and so is giving it a shot, I'll probably be into it!" Three-fourths of the time I'm spending it just stalking on the pins from users I follow.  Now, I do realize that not every pin from every user is tested, approved, and "thumbs-upped" just because they are pinned.  I mean, come on.  How many pins do you have collecting dust?  Probs a ton.  I do. But, hey, if my sister is willing and able to tackle a recipe or craft, I probably should look into it because there's a high likelihood I'm going to be at least moderately into it.

So a lot on my blog will be referrals to good stuff out there.  I hate writing "how-to's."  I don't have a fancy camera to pepper my posts with tons of cool pictures (so sorry/not sorry  if I post a picture of cookies without a thousand preceding pictures of the eggs in a bowl, etc.)  I do enjoy it when other people go through the trouble let's be real, I'm not going to follow through on it.  Plus, other bloggers do an awesome job with photographing their recipes so why let their hard work become redundant and cheap?

Here's to a healthy referral culture!  MAKE THIS GREEK SALAD RIGHT NOW!

This recipe was featured on http://www.thegardengrazer.com/ on April 14, 2014.
Link to full recipe is here: Ultimate Greek Chopped Salad

I jazzed it up a little bit by adding the following:

• 1.5 cups of cooked (and cooled) quinoa
• 1/3 cup of feta cheese
• Roughly 10 Kalamata olives, chopped
• 1-2 tsp. of balsamic vinegar

Notice I also threw an avocado on there but that's just because I had a delicious avocado on hand.  This is a great summer salad that has Italian flare and loads of health benefits.  I served this baby at a pizza party last week and loved it so much I made a second batch yesterday.  It's great in a bowl on its own but I like throwing a cup or so worth of the salad on top of a bed of spinach.

I recommend serving with a slotted spoon.  As the salad rests, the veggies start to juice and you get that little puddle of dressing and veggie "stuff" at the bottom of the bowl.  Chow down, friends!