A fresh, colorful salad, laden with bright vegetables and creative dressings and toppings, is a must for any summer get-together. With summer approaching, it’s a perfect time to refresh your salad ingredients and serving dishes. Selecting an unusual salad bowl will help make your contribution to the potluck stand out, especially if you use a ceramic dish. The Artful Home is a site where many artisans sell their work. Artist Peggy Crago hand-painted this lovely salad bowl with pears, leaves and berries and finished it with a majolica glaze. It’s so beautiful it could be a stand-alone piece of display art in your home, in addition to gracing your table ($275) . This French Home Gourmet ceramic salad bowl is green and eye-catching, because it is shaped like a sunflower ($62); it can also be used as a baking dish. Firenze Gifts, which sells Italian-made products, carries a wide selection of unique bowls, including this green Orvieto Italian ceramic scalloped salad bowl, with a fanciful painted design of a rooster ($120). Some people prefer wooden bowls, because they are lighter and more durable, like this classic tea-stained wooden salad bowls and servers ($3 to $15; pictured). For the perfect salad, try the red KitchenAid salad spinner to whirl excess water off of the salad greens (on sale for $30). The MoMA Store’s stainless steel salad spinner is a design statement in itself, with a patented pump, brake button and a clear lid ($55). You don’t always have to serve salad in little bowls. The Food Network Store sells these clever white square salad plates by BIA Cordon Bleu ($30 for a set of four). A good salad cookbook like Jennifer Chandler’s Simply Salads contains more than 100 recipes for gourmet salads and dressings ($16.50). Another way to make your salad exceptional is by using a unique dressing, such as Vivienne’s Romano Cheese Dressing, a zesty, rich dressing for salad that won an award from the Fancy Food Show ($34 for a six-pack). Prosperi Dressings’ selections include tomato ginger, balsamic vinaigrette and Caesar ($12 for a three-pack). At Igourmet, you can peruse a huge selection of gourmet salad recipes, as well as order high-quality olive oil and vinegar, key ingredients in homemade dressings. L’Olivier’s extra virgin olive oil comes from France and has a fruity, mild olive flavor ($30). L’Olivier’s fruit vinegars come in variety of flavors ($15), and its acetified honey dressing is a sweet-and-sour accompaniment for salads and vegetable dishes ($25).