Broccoli Salad - it may have a boring name, but it's not such a boring salad

I have had these types of salads many times over the years and vaguely know the ingredients. The key is to balance the right amount of crunchy, savoury and sweet ingredients.  Ultimately, it's a pretty tasty way to get the broccoli down.

Ingredients for the salad:

•  1 large stalk of broccoli- chopped into bits (florets and at least part of the stem)
• 2 stalks of celery - diced
• 1/2 cup of toasted sunflower seeds
• 1/2 red onion , diced
• 1/2 cup of cooked bacon bits

Ingredients for the dressing:

• about 1/4 cup of white sugar
• about 1/2 cup of white vinegar
• a couple of tablespoons of oil ( I used olive oil) 
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Toss all of the ingredients for the salad in a medium-sized serving bowl. In a non-reactive pot, heat the sugar in the vinegar on the stove top until it is just dissolved. Pour the sugar and vinegar mixture over the salad ingredients. Drizzle the salad with oil; I think I used about 2 tablespoons, but didn't measure. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir well.  

It takes a while for the flavours to meld , so I would suggest making this salad several hours before consuming it. Serves four.

As Mary Poppins used to say, "just a spoonful of sugar helps the broccoli go down". Anyway, it was something like that.