I’ve spent more hours in the kitchen than I care to admit, trying in vain to recreate the Caesar salad dressing from a certain midtown Manhattan lunch spot.
Sometimes I go all in for the Parmesan cheese. Other times I double the lemon juice. I made my own oven dried anchovy powder, omitting the Worcestershire and adding a pinch of MSG. I convinced myself that if I can just get the formula right, I’ll have a magical elixir that I can drip over any combination of veggies and voila, the perfect salad.
The dressing is not the problem. Or rather, it’s not the only problem with my salads. I am a product maximist. I get carried away by the bounty of the season, pick what looks good at the vegetable market, put it all in one bowl, and don’t mind the salad commands about balancing texture and acidity. I never chose the right cheese.
A few years ago, Julia Moskin wrote in The Times about: composite salads, which are arranged on a plate rather than thrown into a bowl. The ingredients in her recipe were suggestions rather than recipes: something leafy, something crunchy, something rich, a combination of raw and cooked vegetables. “Putted together, the result would be sloppy and monotonous,” she warned. “A little order makes it satisfying and elegant.”
I tried, but I always seemed to fall back on excesses: one big mixture, everyone in the pool. Over time, I’ve come to realize that I need stricter recipes.
They don’t need to be overly involved: Eric Kim’s greens with carrot-ginger dressing, topped with mint. Genevieve Ko’s Corn-Tomato Salad with Basil and Coriander. the seas the rest of our summer salad recipes, are usually very simple, their ingredient lists limited. (Same goes for Melissa Clark’s caprese recommendation below.) Sure, chefs are invited to freestyle, but I plan to stick to the ingredients provided.
I asked a vegetable savvy friend what distinguishes a good salad from a great one. “Really good vinegar,” he said. What do you think? Say your summer salad secrets.
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THE WEEK IN CULTURE
CULTURE CALENDAR
📺 “What We Do in the Shadows” (available now): I’m pretty jealous of anyone who hasn’t seen this FX show, which started its fourth season this week. A half-hour mockumentary about a group of idiotic vampires living in a Staten Island house, “Shadows”, is equally smart and stupid. Like our critic Margaret Lyons wrote prior to season 3“‘Shadows’ thrives on clashes of majesty and ordinariness, its fancy-schmancy lore contrasted with sibling-style bickering.”
🎮 “PowerWash Simulator” (available now on Xbox Game Pass and PC): Video games contain masses. You have your racing games, your violent shooters, your space odysseys and your grand adventures in the open world. Then there are the quirky ones who scratch at an itch you didn’t even know you had, like the desire to use high-pressure water to clean all kinds of objects. For someone who likes to spend their day hand washing the family, this sounds like heaven.
“No” (Friday): Jordan Peele has a new movie. After you direct an instant classic like 2017’s Get Out, people are writing about you. They just say, “Jordan Peele has a new movie.” Do I have to tell you what this movie is about, or are you going to see it because Jordan Peele has a new movie? (Fine, it’s about flying saucers and with Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, okay?)
RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Stone fruit Caprese
You don’t need much for a great caprese salad – just ripe tomatoes, milky mozzarella, basil, and an open hand with the olive oil and salt. But that of Ali Slagle stone fruit caprese tweaks the basic idea in a dazzling new way. Instead of using tomatoes, she tosses bits of summer stone fruit — peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, whatever looks good on the market — with a little sugar and lemon. (Perfect if you’re a produce maximalist like Melissa Kirsch.) A short maceration releases the sweet and sour juices from the fruit, which mix with the olive oil to make the dressing. Make sure to take the mozzarella out of the refrigerator at least 20 to 30 minutes before making this recipe so that the texture becomes smooth and soft. Then serve it with crusty bread or a spoon to catch every last juicy drop.
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The World Athletics Championships: The most important non-Olympic race on the running track for the first time Is being detained in the US — in Eugene, Oregon, also called TrackTown, US American sprinters Fred Kerley and Trayvon Bromell are among the favorites in the men’s 100-meter race tonight, and Galen Rupp, who grew up in Oregon, is a contender tomorrow at the men’s marathon. An international star to watch: Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, four-time world champion in the women’s 100 meters. All week on NBC and Peacock.
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