Crunch at the Salad Bar

Eat more celery.

That’s the message in the annual crop report released last week, which shows that Ventura County reaped $852 million in 1996, down $70 million from the previous year’s all-time high of $922 million.

Lemon sales remained sweet, rising by $4 million to $201 million, while a virus scare involving strawberries from elsewhere made consumers nervous enough to sour Ventura County’s berry biz by $7 million, to $142 million.

Avocados also got mashed, with sales down $28 million from the previous year. Lower yields and pesky pests took their toll, limiting sales to $60 million.

But most of the crunch--a loss of $52 million--came in the county’s fourth-largest crop, celery.

Agriculture officials blamed a lousy market for the stuff, and who can argue?

The health-obsessed ‘80s have given way to the let-the-good-times-roll ‘90s. Keep the rabbit food, says today’s happy hedonist, and grill me a nice rare steak.

With that attitude comes soaring popularity of such retro vices as cigars and martinis. In fact, trend-following bars across the nation are offering vast menus of variations on the classic martini. You can imagine the windfall for olive growers.

For Ventura’s celery barons, the solution seems simple enough:

Bloody Marys, anyone?