The Salad Game, A Love Story for Father's Day

My parents divorced when I was six. My father moved to an apartment closer to his job at a prestigious university. My weekends became a maze of predictable events. My father would come to pick us up in his Ford convertible. My parents would exchange words--not particularly kind ones--she at the front door, and he at the end of the driveway. I think she had a restraining order against him, but she had to let us go with him. So, we'd walk the gauntlet to his care and he'd let us ride, sitting on the roof folded down on the back of the car, until we got to the end of our private dirt road. He did this secretly, waiting to let us do it until we were out of sight of the house because my mother felt it was dangerous. Sitting on the back of that bench seat unprotected by doors and windows felt like flying to me. My brother and I would scream against the wind and laugh until our stomachs ached.

Invariably, we would stop next at the dry cleaners for his shirts, and the cheese shop for his cheese. The kind shop owner never complained when we ate all his samples, because my father was such a regular customer. When Daddy put the bag of cheeses in the car I would ask him, "Daddy, why can't you get normal cheese that doesn't stink?"

"Cheese stinks. That means it's good," he boomed. "Get in the car."

If we hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks--sometimes he simply failed to appear--we knew it was a good time to hit him up for a guilt trip to the toy store, but most of the time we stopped at the Star Market for weekend provisions and to see if there were lobsters in the tank.

"I pity the man who marries you," he would tell me--a jab at my expensive tastes--as I always picked the largest lobster for the lobster man to steam.  In truth, it made my mother laugh to hear all that we had soaked him for over the weekend, and I liked to make her laugh. 

My brother always had his filthy hands in the pickle barrel beside the deli counter.  My father ended up buying a lot of pickles, tied up like long green fish in little plastic bags with their pickle juice. My brother would eat every one of them by the end of the weekend. 

The last stop would usually be the liquor store, or Dad would simply leave us alone in the car while he went into a bar to get a drink. This wasn't particularly upsetting to us. It was just something he did sometimes. We once consumed an entire bag of Wise potato chips waiting for him to return, and I threw up in his car. When I told my mother this story it was confusing to me that she ran to call her attorney. He was a nice man. I'd met him often, although I was aware that his arrival often meant there was trouble. My daddy caused a lot of trouble. 

Mom, Dad and me on my first Christmas

 But, on those Saturday nights when we were safely home in his apartment on the sixth floor in downtown Cambridge, all our troubles melted away. If we didn't have lobster, Daddy would broil a steak, and bake potatoes. He'd put bowls of vegetables on the table, and cruets of oil and vinegar, and celery salt and bacon bits--real ones, not Bacos--and blue cheese and mustard, and he'd let us make our own salad and salad dressing. Every weekend. It was part of the ritual. I learned what it meant to use too much salt, or too much vinegar. He would rarely give us a second chance, angry if we wasted food. The rule was we had to eat what we made. We made stuff that was so truly terrible that the challenge to eat it became part of the game. My father was not usually present for this debauch, still tending to dinner in the kitchen. We were always relieved to see him appear with the steak and potatoes, to soak up the mess we had made in our stomachs.

 Sometimes, I would visit my father alone. The salad game wasn't the raucous game it was when my brother was with me, but the time alone allowed me to hone my skills. I got quite good at making salad dressing with no instruction, other than my taste buds. Many times I would drink what was left of it straight out of the bowl, as a way of savoring my creation. 

I always thought of the salad game as a quirky Dad-ism, because that is how my mother saw it. She would often, and with good reason, roll her eyes and guffaw at his antics. But, I realize now that my father, the scientist, my father, the professor, was teaching us to experiment. He was teaching me to trust my instincts and rely on my nose and my taste buds. I learned about how one flavor can overpower another and ruin what had started off well. I learned to dip my lettuce leaves into the dressing before pouring it willy-nilly over all. Oddly, my father who was so often not even present was refining me and teaching me to enjoy food by playing with it. My mother was a superlative cook, but from him I learned a base-note love of food without which, I would not be the cook I am today. I am a true master at throwing things together from what is available.  And, I love him for that.

In the evening, after the salad and the steaks were gone, I sat, often in the crook of his arm, and we watched The Honeymooners and The Jack Benny Program on his black and white portable TV. He'd have to reach around me to get his martini. Sometimes shared an olive with me. I would fall asleep hearing his fine, deep laughter vibrating in his chest. For all his faults, he was mine, and I was his.

When I was nine, my mother remarried. When I was ten, my father disappeared. He'd been fired from his job at the university for his alcohol usage. He didn't want anyone to know. And, I think he felt that we would be better off without him. It was a blow to me, but it turned me toward my stepfather, with whom I might never have developed a relationship if my father had been present.

My stepfather, Russell, was a Virginia born, country doctor's son. He could wax rhapsodic about food like no man I've ever known. I saw not only his family's peach orchards from his rich descriptions, I saw the sticky little boy beneath the tree gorging himself in the summer sunshine--a little boy I knew only because of his stories of his love of food. His Aunt Miriam's watermelon rind pickles, and her home-canned spiced peaches. Homemade peach ice-cream he cranked until his arms ached and then shared with his father late at night after his father came home from an emergency house call.

 Russell loved ice cream. One day when I was grown, and Russell was shifting into a reflective old age, he said to me out of the blue, "You know why I love ice cream?"

 "No, why?"

 "Because it's what I remember most about my father--talking and eating ice cream. It was his special time for me."

 In that moment I realized that all of his stories, all of his beautiful contemplations about life and food were also stories about loneliness he suffered. I leaned over and kissed him.

He smiled at me.  "We should go get some ice cream," he said.

I learned very different things about food from the men in my life than from the women. I learned about hungers, and hunting--and ultimately bagging the best steak, the finest cheese, or the perfect peach. I learned that food covered with mold is not necessarily a bad thing. I credit my stepfather's love for true Virginia ham, and my father's love of hand cured salamis for that. From them, I learned the adventure of food, the trial and error, the giddiness of trying, or creating, something new.

 Last weekend we had neighbors over for dinner. It was a lovely balmy evening. We ate our meal outside. It was a simple meal--grilled burgers and salad. Our friend, Mark, passed my salad dressing to his wife. "You have to taste this dressing! It's the best I've ever had. I could eat it off the spoon." And then he looked at me and asked, "Is that terrible?"

When Becca tasted it, she thought it was so good she drank what was left of it right out of the bowl. She saw the way I looked at her and laughed at herself.

"Is that just so rude?" she asked me.

"No, enjoy! You just reminded me of something. Or, someone actually." I hadn't thought about the salad game in years.

I was just going to post the recipe, but I thought it was a good time to write a love letter to my fathers, both of whom are gone now. In the kitchen at least, I still have all my parents, and my grandparents, too. But to my fathers, Russell and Cecil, I just wanted you to know that you still whisper in my gastronomic soul, and you always will.

Dijon Mustard Salad Dressing

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

Juice of one small lemon

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon fresh chopped herbs, such as dill or tarragon

2 large garlic cloves

1 teaspoon Kosher salt, divided

2/3 cup olive oil, see note

Note: Classic oil and vinegar dressings are three parts oil to one part vinegar, but I find this too oily for my taste. You can add up to another 1/3 cup oil to suit your own.

Sprinkle half the salt on a cutting board and finely chop the garlic, herbs and salt together. Put this mixture in a bowl and add the Dijon, lemon juice, vinegar and the rest of the salt. Whisk until smooth. Whisking with one hand and pouring with the other, add the oil in a thin stream, a tablespoon or two at a time.  Whisk thoroughly to incorporate the oil with the other ingredients and allow the dressing to emulsify each time you add more oil.