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| Caesar Salad. Photo: stu_spivack, Flickr. |
Continue reading Restaurant That Invented Caesar Salad Closes
As far as I'm concerned, a Caesar salad is one of the best salads going. Don't get me wrong, I do love salads that are heaped with a number of different veggies and topped with a simple vinaigrette. However, those many-ingredient salads are a lot of work and don't lend themselves to a quick weeknight dinner in the same way that a basic Caesar does. 
Between my vast cookbook collection, the over 100 food blogs that I read, and the wonderful recipe web sites that I use daily, I can find a recipe for just about anything. Anything, that is, except a dish that seems suitable for dinner. Why is it that I can easily find a recipe for chestnut-armagnac souffle (doesn't that sound good?), but not one thing that I feel like eating or cooking on a given night? I usually just end up falling back on old favorites, so I thought I'd share list some here, just in case anyone out there has the same problem as I do. Chances are that many of our default dishes overlap, but maybe if everyone shares some, we'll get some new dishes circulating...
Salad isn't exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dish. However, my mother always served it at our holiday meal. I think that she was convinced of the moral necessity of having at least one fresh vegetable on the table; either that, or she was worried that we were going to get scurvy and gout from gorging on turkey. 
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When we think about food porn, the things that come to mind are decadent chocolate cakes, perfectly topped pizzas and sweet sorbets. But can salad be food porn? Of course it can, because food porn is about making the food look good and an array of fresh, colorful veggies almost always does. We saw a beautiful wedge salad once before, for example, but this Caesar Salad from Celia at English Patis deserves special attention. Not only is it simple and satisfying, but the homemade dressing topping it off is easy to make. It does not start off with eggs and oil, but uses mayonnaise as a base, so busy home chefs, as well as inexperienced ones, will always be able to whip up some caesar dressing before dinner.
The Washington Post runs a ho-hum article about the Caesar Salad, but manages to catch my eye with an interesting bit about the history of the salad's origins. It was invented in 1924 by Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant and restaurant owner in Mexico. While a quick Google search backs up that claim, web site What's Cooking America provides a bit more information about the Caesar's trek to Europe (the site references a book that claims Mrs. Wallis Simpson brought the leafy dish across the Atlantic), and provides the histories of other well-known salads.
December may have peppermint bark, but have you thought to incorporate the taste of autumn into white chocolate with a rich pumpkin swirl?
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