My favorite winter salads are always a combination of bitter greens with apples or pears, nuts, and either salty or buttery cheese. You can create so many different combinations using just these guidelines. There is only one caveat: you must use homemade vinaigrette. Make it with a strong vinegar like sherry as that will enhance the flavors of your greens and fruit. To make this particular salad, I used what we had in the house and shopped for greens and cheese. I chose arugula because that was the only bitter green available yesterday. After sampling various salty cheeses, I chose Wholefoods' Pecorino Toscano. With my cheese and greens selected, everything else sort of fell into place. This dish is really two salads stacked on top of each other: the arugula salad goes on the bottom and the apple salad goes on top. The pecorino is added at the end. I prefer equal amounts of each salad, but please feel free to adjust that proportion to your own taste. Also, if you think chopping apples into matchsticks is too fussy, then just dice them. It won't make any difference.

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