This salad is about restraint. It asks you to find the best greens at the market, source goat cheese from someone who cares about their animals, and then do almost nothing to either.

I first served something like this in the early years of Chez Panisse, when we were still learning what California cooking could be. The idea came from France, where warm chèvre salads appear in bistros everywhere, but the execution was ours: local greens picked that morning, cheese from a neighbor's goats, walnuts from the orchard down the road. People thought we were being precious. We were simply paying attention.

The technique is minimal. You bread the cheese, warm it in the oven, dress the greens at the last possible moment, and bring it to the table. That is all. But everything depends on the quality of what you start with. Tired greens from a plastic clamshell will never taste like lettuces cut an hour ago. Industrial goat cheese will never have the tang and sweetness of cheese made by hand. Your choices shape the food system. They also shape this salad.

Find a farmer who grows salad greens. Ask about their goat cheese. Let things taste of what they are.