I have a salad spinner so I tear the green top off of the entire head and wash it well. A decent looking head will be good for at least six days or more.

My pet peeve. I carefully take off the outer leaves first, washing them leaf by leaf. Sometimes I take only enough for immediate use; other times I dismantle and wash the whole head, putting the cleaned whole leaves wrapped in a paper towel, then in the plastic bag, back in the fridge. DH will rip off a buncha green from anywhere on the head. He doesn't mind tossing the bit near the stem; I do.

I've found that whole leaves (of romaine particularly) don't dry very well in the spinner. Instead, when making salad and the pieces will be cut anyway, I like to use kitchen shears to snip off maybe half inch pieces, starting at the top. Or you can cut off the bottom stem and start at the bottom. Or do both.

I fill the spinner with water, swish the pieces around, empty and do it again, empty and then spin. With iceberg, you can pull of the large spherical leaves, roll them and bundle together, and snip them with shears too before washing.

I like lettuce in salad to be very dry. I've heard about the washing and then into a plastic bag with a paper towel method too, I just don't tend to plan that far ahead.

I mostly buy romaine and butter lettuce. I wash and trim the whole head and keep it in an Oxo Fresh container, taking out whatever portion I want for each meal.

We have salads twice a week during winter so we buy 4 Little Gems, one per person. Wash, spin and eat. Little Gems are very similar to romaine (our summer favorite).

Mostly I use romaine hearts and red leaf lettuce. I remove all the leaves from the core and submerse in water. Then individually remove and rinse each leaf. It is all stood up in my dish drainer to drip for 1/2 hour or so. Then I put it in my salad spinner a few leaves at a time where DH spins it to dry as much as possible. Then it is put in a large zip lock bag lined with paper towels. Keeps well for as much as 2 weeks.

Head lettuce which I rarely buy, is cored, outer leaves removed, rinsed all over, then placed core end down in a lettuce keeper bowl that I bought from Tupperware more than 30 years ago. I have often had this keep well for as much as a month when I use up the last of it.

We eat salad every night with dinner year-round, it's the only thing like that we do. And sometimes for lunch. Even with our empty nest, lettuce doesn't spend much time in our fridge - even when we buy a few heads, it's gone in a few days.

Elmer, a garden salad is part of our evening meal at least every other day and the other days a variety plate of fresh veggies is part of the meal as well as part of the noon meal most days. I keep head lettuce as a backup, in case I run low or out of romaine or leaf lettuce so now and then a little of it gets past use.

I like an inch thick spread of lettuce on sandwiches and burgers.

Thankful for Little Gems.

which is what?

I buy the 6 pack of organic romaine hearts at Costco. Wash and spin all at the same time. Will pick up a leaf lettuce mix and arugula tomorrow at the farmers' market. We eat a salad almost every night.

which is what?

Safe to eat alternative.

Oh, like saltine crackers? Why be evasive?

Evasive? It's lettuce! See my earlier post on Thursday, 2:02 PM.

Have a better day, Elmer.