Jordan - Vinaigrettes and other dressings : 60 sensational recipes to liven up greens, grains, slaws, and every kind of salad

The Harvard Common Press
www.harvardcommonpress.com

Copyright 2013 by Michele Anna Jordan

Photographs 2013 by Kimberley Hasselbrink

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Jordan, Michele Anna.

Vinaigrettes and other dressings : 60 sensational recipes to liven up greens, grains, slaws, and every kind of salad / Michele Anna Jordan.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-55832-805-1
1. Vinaigrettes. 2. Salad dressing. 3. Cookbooks. lcgft I. Title.
TX819.S27J67 2013
641.81'4dc23
2012035547

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Front cover photography by Joyce Oudkerk Pool

p>Text and back cover/spine photography by Kimberley Hasselbrink

p>Food styling by Michele Anna Jordan

For Patrick Bouquet,

youre the closest Ive ever come to having a brother, in good times and bad, yours and mine. And no one shouts Fire! as effectively as you, Patio, even when its just a muskrat under the slicer.

And for my sweet grandson, Lucas,

whose eager and adventurous palate has been an inspiration since his first baby-bird-like bite of solid foodK & L Bistros cauliflower soup with black olive tapenadeat just six months of age. All the recipes with anchovies, feta, and blue cheese are for you, Lucas.

It has been a joy working with The Harvard Common Press. Dan Rosenberg, Valerie Cimino, Virginia Downes, Pat Jalbert-Levine, Jane Dornbusch, and Annabelle Blake: Yall rock! And Bruce Shaw, thanks for this opportunity and for being so awesomely savvy about publishing in the age of iPads, Kindles, and social media.

And to my uber-brilliant agent, Andy Ross, thanks for smoothing the way on contractual stuff and for making me laugh. A lot.

As always, I am grateful to the farmers and ranchers of Sonoma County, who make my life so easy. Whether its a head of butter lettuce, a succulent peach, a voluptuous egg, a juicy rack of lamb, or delicious olive oil, the foods of this special place are among the finest anywhere. I am also deeply indebted to the hardworking managers of our farmers markets, who constantly endeavor to keep the best of our regions harvest available to the community. And I raise a glass of something bright and sparkling to our grape growers and winemakers, who help make the end of every day a celebration.

Many thanks to Kimberley Hasselbrink, who did a great job with photography. And special thanks to Gayle Sullivan of Dry Creek Peach and Produce for help during the photo shoot and, always, for the Arctic Gem white peaches. Thanks, as well, to Dominique Cortara of Dominiques Sweets for the surprise visit and yummy things to eat and drink that sustained us during shooting and clean up.

I send a big mahalo nui loa to my teacher Kumu Hula Shawna Alapai, my hula sisters, and singer Faith Ako for keeping my spirit well fed.

A special thank you goes to Rosemary McCune, hula sister, friend, confidante, coconspirator, doggy sitter, and all-around cool chica. Rosemary was a great help with last-minute shopping (Oops, the fennel died) and prep during the books photo shoot.

To my beloved friend and landlady, Mary Duryee, and Joanne Derbort, my editor at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, thank you from the deepest recesses of my heart.

Finally, to my dear friends John Boland and James Carroll, my daughters Gina and Nicolle, my grandson, Lucas, and my son-in-law, Tom, thank you for putting up with how busy I always seem to be. No matter what I am doing, I would always prefer to be around a table with all of you, talking, laughing, and sharing a great big salad.

A green salad, I firmly believe, should follow the main course of a meal, at noon or night, and should be made almost always and almost solely of fresh crisp garden lettuces tossed at the last with a plain vinaigrette.

M. F. K. Fisher, from "One Way to Stay Young" in With Bold Knife and Fork (1969)

From a few leaves of just-picked lettuces damp with an evenings rain and a creamy frenzy of earthy potatoes napped in a velvety mayonnaise to a cool mound of silky rice noodles in a tart and fiery dressing, salads delight and nourish us every day, the world round. Salads keep us healthy, happy, and alive.

In the past several decades, salads in America have improved in myriad delicious ways, with a huge variety of greens now available in supermarkets where, not that long ago, you might have foundif you were lucky to live in a sophisticated arearomaine lettuce alongside heads of iceberg. Now theres arugula, frise and other heirloom chicories, spring salad mix, fall salad mix, tender butter lettuces, and more, all within easy reach of almost anyone. Whos eating them? Everyone. If they didnt sell, they wouldnt be there.

Our very definition of salad has been transformed, too, with almost everything we eatsave, say, chocolate and ice creammaking its way under that broad umbrella. Any fruit and vegetable can be found in a salad somewhere, as can grains like rice, farro, barley, and quinoa; pasta of every variety, shape, and size; various soft and hard cheeses; quail, chicken, duck, and turkey eggs; chicken, duck, quail, lamb, pork, beef, and bison; and all manner of fish and shellfish. Add a tangy vinaigrette or dollop of aioli and, voil, salad!

Commercial salad dressings have expanded similarly, though I dont greet this development with the same enthusiasm as I do the proliferation of leafy greens. For the most part, commercial salad dressings eclipse rather than enhance the foods they cloak. They mask poorly grown greens and out-of-season tomatoes, but they dont enliven foods grown in their own time and harvested at their peak of flavor. These salad dressings, laden with salt, sugar, fat, and chemicals, may make swallowing vegetables easier for those who dont (or think they dont) like them, but they dont enrich the experience of those who love vegetables and seek out the best.

If I were Queen of the World, the supermarket shelves devoted to salad dressings would be emptied.

Of course, I am not, and so you have this book, my attempt to change the world one person at a time by convincing each and every one of you to wean yourself from commercial dressings and embrace the simple, delicious, thrifty, and healthful joy of making your own salad dressings. It takes a small bit of effort to achieve a huge payoff: delicious salads, every day.

A well-stocked pantry neednt include a comprehensive array of ingredients that rivals your local gourmet shop. It should simply contain everything you need to cook as you like to cook. Focus on high-quality brands of those items you actually use; add new ones as you discover, like, and understand them; and store them in a way that maintains their quality for as long as possible, which is to say in a cool cupboard away from sunlight, dampness, and heat from a stove, fireplace, or furnace. Thats it.