Caesar Salad Dressing

With Stephanie Smith

There are several myths and legends about Caesar salad, but the most accepted is that it was invented in 1924 over the Fourth of July weekend by Caesar Cardini, an Italian born Mexican from Tijuana. It seems that he had run out of ingredients and made up the salad using what ingredients he had, and it became a big hit at his restaurant in Tijuana. After it traveled to Europe, some say because of Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson (mistress and ultimately wife of Prince Edward VIII of Wales, former King of England). In the 1930s, Caesar Salad was voted by the master chefs of the International Society of Epicures in Paris as the "greatest recipe to originate from the Americas in fifty years."

Julia Child even wrote about going to his restaurant and seeing the “show” that Caesar put on by making the salad tableside, using a coddled egg (boiled until creamy) and no anchovies. Most recipes, including this one from Stephanie Smith at Changing Tides Gift Shop, use anchovies, but the original Caesar did not have them and received its slightly “fishy” flavor from Worcestershire sauce. It is still popular and still good.

Making this dressing is easy if you have a food processor. All you do is add the ingredients and whisk it all together. What is also good about this dressing is that it can be made ahead and served when you want it. Just keep cool in the refrigerator until then.

Ingredients

6 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Vinegar
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice
Minced anchovy fillets

Instructions

1. Mix all ingrdienst together in a food processor and chill before using.

Recipe courtesy of Stephanie Smith, Changing Tides Gift Shop, ACE Hardware, 2011.

Stephanie grew up in Connecticut as a latch key kid of two full time working parents.  When she got home from school she would do experiments in the kitchen with whatever ingredients she could reach. 

“I remember one day after school looking for the peanut butter for a snack, when I could not find it, I decided to make my own.  I got out some butter and some peanuts, put them all into a baggy and rolled it out with a rolling pin.  Hey, how was I supposed to know, at age 6, that peanut butter has no butter!  It didn’t look quite right, and tasted different, but as I recall, it wasn’t half bad.”

Stephanie was in 3rd grade when she decided to make cupcakes for her mom’s birthday.  No recipe of course.  She had watched her mom and grandmother bake, so she knew you needed flour, sugar, eggs and vanilla.  She cannot remember what else she found to dump in, but does remember that they resembled hockey pucks!  Her mom smiled, took a bite, and said how thoughtful she was.  They next day when they were gone, her dad said he’d eaten them all.  She is sure they ended up in the town dump. 

She says that her cooking has improved since then, but has remained a fun and creative outlet for her.  When she was just out of college and teaching in Boston, living on a teacher’s salary was not enough, so she began working for a catering company in Charlestown.  She also started cooking for friend’s dinners and cocktail parties out of her small apartment kitchen in Boston.  The next thing she knew she had trays of food spread into the living room, kitchen and anywhere there was a spot.  Her roommates would take off the minute they saw the grocery bags come in. 

Since she moved to Rockport and married her husband Jay, she has catered many dinners for the masons, catered many events for the family businesses and staff events, catered friends showers and events and entertained many friends. She reads cookbooks for fun, while others read novels.  She is a self-taught cook but experimenting, practicing and of course eating has taught her well.  She is not afraid of flavor and thinks her food reflects that. She loves to see what she can do to improve or embellish other’s recipes.   “It’s fun, enjoyable and makes people happy!”

She also loves to knit, scrap book and is a potter with a wonderful studio.  However, she says that she has no time, unfortunately, for any of those things.  The way I get to be creative is in her kitchen.  She always makes time to cook for her children, family and friends.  After all, to Stephanie, “food is love!”