Yes my more usual summer salad can run to some version of an "American Greek salad" -- shredded romaine or iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers (usually, sometimes not), red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese... oil and vinegar, Italian seasonings. it's my go-to when I'm not having a salad that features a little chicken or fish. But when it gets as hot as it's been lately I can end up heading for the plain side of everything out of preference for some reason. Or just a nearly complete lack of interest!?
When the weather breaks back down into even the mid-70ºF range, more normal for here in summer, I suddenly get interested in spicier things again and will even make curried dishes for supper, or at lunchtime load up a cold tomato soup with tabasco and lemon, a sort of faux gaspacho if too lazy to make a real one. 😀
That cream cheese concoction sounds interesting with the tomatoes and a nice bread. I'll file that away for a homebrew September trial... as marinated cheeses go, I've only ever heard of feta marinated in olive oil and basil, which is quite good.
In my middle-school years we lived across the boulevard from a gigantic produce farm run by Italian-Americans; they supplied local restaurants and also had a farmstand on the premises where the matriarch sold specialities of the season made from her family's handed-down versions of Mediterranean recipes, things like a giardiniera of marinated mixed vegetables... and sometimes that marinated feta with basil.
