I'm a huge fan of lentil salad and the most upscale way I've seen it served was with about $20 worth of cold poached salmon and $10 very fresh herbs/lemon zest vinaigrette at the Hay Adams Hotel in DC.
It's also the season in France of the charentais melon, melon being the soul mate of lentil salad as cucumber cubes with skin are the soul mates of hummus. Cucurbits and beans, a fecund area of exploration.
Lentil salad hard to plate though, can't remember how it was done at the Hay Adams. I suspect green and not brown lentils are the starting point, with fresh spicy leaves underneath, like watercress.
Trying to brighten it up with beet salad is a typically skinflint choice by Jarvis. Lardons (as shown cooking the lentil salad) were one of Isabelle's Oliver Twist
master of the Mudfog Workhouse dodges for not serving meat to her volunteer employees. We see Stephanie feeding her paying guests with the same memory of a whisper of lardon in the lentil salad -- bad idea, bacon fat can coagulate.
Dark brown lentils and dark red beets for lunch with tomato tart, a badly thought through choice for eye appeal, flavor and texture contrasts.
Here's two revised lunch menu using the same, and more, seasonal ingredients, for the music workshop guests.
Lemonade with Lalande Honey for the Singers' Throats
Panzanella
Cold Poached Salmon,
Sauce Verte
Green Puy Lentil Salad, with Lemon Zest and Parsley, Charentais Melon Ball Skewers, Room Temp
Port Wine Dipping Sauce
Mirabelle Plum Fool
Fresh Seasonal
Artisanal Saint Nectaire and Ossau Iraty Cheese, Fresh Mirabelle Plums, Toasts, Lalande Honey
Hot Tea
Lemonade with Lalande Honey for the Singers' Throats
Beet Borscht, let the Russians and Ukrainians make it with beef bone broth, Sour Cream
Cold Boiled Beef,
Salsa Verde
Sliced Tomatoes, with Roquefort, Honey and Pink Pepper
Baguette, French Butter
Fresh Raspberries, Vanilla Ice Cream, Raspberry Coulis
Lavender Madeleines
Linden Blossom Tea