Charentais Melons with Candied Walnuts,

I finally got the recipe for the salad going. I found this when I we were on vacation in the San Francisco paper. I like candied walnuts so I clipped it.

I never knew the wine country was such a big food place.
Overall I liked the salad. Of course, as an "off the shelf" cook I made this, but not exactly. So here is what happened:

• I've no idea what "charentais" melons are, and didn't see them at my regular grocery so I bought a "Santa Claus" melon. It was golden and very good, sweet.

• I have candied walnuts from the store, so I used those. I'm very prone to burning things and nuts are easy to burn so the store-bought ones seemed much safer.

• Sorry to say no grapes, but we didn't miss them. The melon and nuts makes this kind of sweet anyway.
• Vanilla vinaigrette sounds good, but vanilla beans are pricey. So I made due with some Kens' Raspberry/Walnut - the lite variety. It has some walnut flavor.
• My watercress wasn't as peppery as some I've had. I think the spicier greens would help this.

So my ideas for next time are to see what's available "off-the-shelf" in the vanilla salad dressing category, or perhaps to add a little vanilla to some dressing, or maybe make this dressing and just skip the expensive beans. I'd also check the flavor of the greens. The "Santa Claus" melon was a winner, as was this salad.