Outside of my food life, one of my passions is vintage stuff of all kinds. I like old things because many times, they’re made or designed better. They’re built to last, back when companies did that sort of thing. I also appreciate the history that older items carry with them, and my pocketbook enjoys reusing instead of buying new.

Where my interests intersect is when we start to talk about vintage food. No, not the expired can of garbanzo beans in your mom’s basement pantry! But old fashioned food, from bygone eras. Hundreds of books have been published trying to revive the 1950’s cocktail party, for example. Or colonial era recipes around Thanksgiving, served in big cast iron pots. Or jello molds!

Well, believe it or not, things from the 1980s are now considered vintage, and therefore totally cool. When I think back about vintage stuff from the 1980s, I remember Cuisinart food processors, root beer Lip Smackers, and Laura Ashley everything. And power bangs! When I think of 80s food, I remember goat cheese and balsamic vinegar. It seemed to be everywhere in salad offerings, a welcome departure from iceberg lettuce with cheddar cheese shreds and goopy dressings. These new ingredients screamed sophistication and they have, today, stood the test of time.

Today’s recipe harkens back to those distant 1980s, with a classic spinach salad flatbread wrap featuring strawberries, almonds, goat cheese, chicken, and balsamic vinegar. If you have balsamic glaze, a reduced version of balsamic vinegar, use it in this flatbread recipe, because it’s less likely to get things soggy and has great acidity, too.

Toss this salad up in a bowl and then wrap it into the flatbread and get ready to be blown away by two eras melding into one fabulous flatbread lunch. Like, totally.

Amy at Flatout