new experiences in salad dressing
We have a disagreement in our house about what kind of salad dressing is best. Harvey likes a creamy dressing, the kind made with mayonnaise and sour cream. Zion prefers a vinaigrette, heavy on the vinegar—or when we don't have any dressing made he's happy to adorn his salad with balsamic straight from the bottle. (Elijah doesn't eat salads.) I was at Penzies the other day, and, looking at their display of salad dressing mixes, wondered if Italian dressing might split the difference. Some vinegar, but not too much; plenty of sweetness too. Seems perfect! When I went to make the first bottle this evening, though, I was kind of surprised by the recipe. Two parts oil to one part vinegar? And vegetable oil?! (the instructions don't even specify what kind of vinegar). Because it was the first time I did it like they said, and as I expected it came out pretty oily. But I guess that's what salad dressing is like for most people! We're maybe an exception in that, to us, a vinaigrette is twice as much vinegar as oil. Because vinegar is the part that tastes good and doesn't coat your tongue with flavorless oil goop! No, I exaggerate: it actually was fine. Just like store-bought dressing. But nobody loved it. I'll change up the recipe a little bit next time, but for now I wonder how long it'll take us to go through the cup-plus that I made today?