Not all salad dressings are equal, and the ways they differ can be important and altogether unexpected. While quality matters, I am referring to differences that run deeper and are perhaps more significant. There are dressings that empower us, and there are those that undermine our ability to think and do for ourselves. That’s a lot to claim about so small a dish. Let me explain.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed spending time in Italy, where salad is served daily in every sort of restaurant. Alongside bowls of undressed greens, four ingredients are placed on the table: extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. The last two are in mills so you can grind them yourself. The offering of these ingredients is based on two underlying assumptions. First, that anyone big enough to eat a salad is also big enough to dress it, without measuring spoons and without a recipe. Second, that our personal preferences vary.

The power to dress a salad—that is, the power to choose and do for oneself—is granted and taken daily. Implicit in the granting is a message so ennobling that it’s worth pausing to consider: You can do this; without a recipe, you can dress a salad using ingredients that are basic and real, and you can make it taste good. You have that ability.

How different salads are for most of us, having lost much of our self reliance in the kitchen, along with the conviction that we are capable of preparing simple and delicious fare. It is not too strong to say that this is emblematic of the larger ways in the realm of cooking that we have let our power go, giving it to an industry that generally has profit, rather than our well being, as its motive. It is an industry that has reduced personal choice to an array of inferior bottled dressings.

Making a good vinaigrette is a worthwhile step toward self reliance. It is so easy and takes so little time that I wonder how we’ve been persuaded to spend money on bottled dressings that cost more and are comprised of mostly poor-quality oils and artificial ingredients.

The concept of a vinaigrette is as simple as combining a fat with an acid, and the ways you can then embellish it are almost endless. You can vary your choice of oil from neutral to intense, or fruity to peppery. You can alternate the vinegar, choosing red wine, balsamic, sherry, or a different acid altogether like orange or lemon juice. And you can experiment with texture, making your vinaigrette thin or, if you prefer, creamy like mayonnaise. For everyday use, you might rely on a standard recipe of vinegar and oil combined with shallots, mustard, salt ,and pepper. You can also add fresh herbs for color and flavor.

As you begin making your own vinaigrette, keep in mind that quality and proportion matter most. You will want to use a fine fresh oil, delicious vinegar, and good sea salt. A standard ratio is three or four parts oil to one part acid. Also remember that vinaigrette can be prepared in the moment, or made a day ahead to give the flavors a chance to meld.

Vinaigrette is, most of all, a can-do creation that allows you to imprint your preferences and personality onto everyday dishes. It asks so little and gives so much, and I’ll illustrate this point by concluding with a story about my six-year-old daughter, Rebecca.

One day when Rebecca was about four years-old I asked her to help me finish making a vinaigrette, the one I toss with almost every salad I make. I needed someone else to taste it. It turns out that Rebecca has an impeccable palate, which I do not. She seasoned and finished it so beautifully that I would no longer dream of making this vinaigrette without her. It has become Rebecca’s signature dressing. She makes it for company. People ask her for the recipe and for advice on duplicating her results in their own kitchens. All this at the age of six, and from a child who doesn’t give a whit about cooking.

That’s the beauty of vinaigrette: it allows even a six-year-old to sparkle and shine. If you let it, it will work its magic for you, too.

Two Vinaigrettes

Here in the Mid-Atlantic, the weather has made a gradual shift from warm to cold, which has brought me, as it always does, to consider the wisdom of eating seasonally. As I replace tomatoes and corn with winter squash and hardy greens, I am occasionally tempted to let summer’s melody linger on in my cooking, but I can think of several reasons to resist the temptation.

Seasonal foods are more nutritious because they are generally grown and harvested close to home. They give us the nutrients we need to support health in our own unique climate. They are also more nutritious because they’re harvested when ripe. Produce that travels is generally picked before it’s ready. It might look ripe when we buy it, its color may have bloomed, but nutritional value comes from the stem. So, food can’t become more nutritious after it’s harvested, only less so, no matter how it appears.
Food harvested in season and close to where we live tastes better because it’s fresher, and because local varieties are grown for flavor rather than their ability to be shipped across miles.
Seasonal foods grown nearby are cleaner since they are not treated with the chemicals needed to preserve them during shipping and storage.
Buying foods that grow nearby and that are harvested in season is more economical. It leaves shipping costs and middle men out of the equation, especially if we buy directly from farmers, but also if we buy local produce at the grocery store.

There is another reason to eat seasonally and it is one worthy of standing alone. Our bodies attune to a natural rhythm, one that is synchronized to the seasons of the year and the hours of the day. Spring and summer (like morning and early afternoon) inspire a building up and expending of energy. Fall and winter (like late afternoon and evening) are better suited to slowing down, pulling inward, and allowing ourselves time to rest. Eating seasonal foods supports this natural rhythm. When we disregard it—when, for example, we eat zucchini or melon in the winter and burn the candle late into the night—we may become less resilient. And it is resilience, an inner vitality that enables us to recover quickly, that maximizes our potential for strength and well being. So eating seasonally is one important way of maintaining optimal health.

Finding seasonal foods at the grocery store can be a trick because at any time of the year we now find produce that was once available for only a few weeks or months. To complicate matters, if you don’t garden, you may not know what foods are in season. Even so, you can learn to “read” your produce to predict how it will affect you by paying attention to qualities that give you clues.

Cooling foods are suitable for warm weather. They have a high water content and are best eaten raw or lightly cooked. Think cucumbers, watermelon, and juicy berries. Cooling foods like radishes, sprouts, green beans, and zucchini grow quickly and many reflect the darker colors of the rainbow: blue, green and purple. Tropical foods like bananas and pineapple are especially cooling, as are fresh herbs like cilantro, basil and chives. A cooling diet should ideally contain a higher proportion of fresh foods, and less protein and fat. It should contain tender leafy greens and fewer cooked foods, and cooking should be light. Steaming is an ideal way to cook foods in warm weather.

Warming foods are suitable for cool weather. They’re harder, drier and more compact, and they require more heat to prepare. Think butternut squash, dried beans, parsnips, and garlic. Warming foods like winter squash and sweet potatoes grow slowly and are generally lighter in color: red, orange, yellow and white. Dried spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and peppercorns are warming. A warming diet should contain a higher proportion of cooked foods, along with richer proteins and fats. Animal foods are warming, as are longer cooking times. Slow stewing and roasting are especially suited to cool weather.

Keep in mind that warming and cooking are relative terms. A strawberry is more warming than a mango, but it is still cooling—that is, still not well suited to a snowy day.

Also, remember that the way you prepare foods can influence whether they become warming or cooling. Consider a carrot, which can be harvested fresh in spring, summer, and fall. It can also be served out of storage in winter, so it is seasonal year round. In warmer months, you can juice it or grate it into a salad. In colder months, you may want to cook it into a soup, puree it, or roast it with olive oil. Do you see how when we want to make a food more warming, we cook it longer, at a higher temperature, and with added fat? The temperature at which you serve foods also matters. I eat soup year-round, but cooked for less time and served lukewarm in summer, and simmered longer and served very warm in winter.

Implicit in Vinaigrette

The Why and How of Eating Seasonally

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