My Ex-Mother-In-Law's Salad Dressing Recipe

I made that tonight. It is not exactly a recipe - just something she'd throw together. You know, as cooks do.

Hadn't made that in years. Had no desire to in years.

I got sick over Memorial Day weekend. Getting sick is always a good time for self-pity and reminiscence. The good old days of when someone would take care of you. Especially when you got sick.

I never grew up. I have to take care of me now. And it's hard.

At #WorkNo1, my fav personnel in admin just recently started stocking our mini fridge with juice boxes. At first, there were giggles. Diet-watchers were wary. Before long, everybody was digging in.

"It's like you're ten again!" Exclaimed Gerald*, one of the twentysomethings in our team. "When you didn't have bills to pay..."

Everybody chimed in. "All is good with the world again!" We'd take one sip from our juice box and relate in jest. But we all meant it.

Just as a high school friend has recently reposted in a meme: you spent your childhood longing to grow up, and then it is like, "It'd be fun, they said."

"My ex-mother-in-law would be proud," I told RJ tonight upon recreating the salad dressing from memory. "Except for the part where I broke her son's heart."

Inviting RJ for a tasting, I suggested, "Sort of a twisted Thousand Island, right?"

"A Kraft Russian," remarked RJ.

With which I'd had no experience, so I couldn't comment.

All the tang and all the versatility. Alive on my kitchen counter, twenty decades later. I'd never written anything down.

"Some things just stick," I told RJ. "The fact that she added BOTH mayo and olive oil freaked me out."

Oh, so much has changed. I was in awe that a seasoned cook could just whip up something with whatever she happened to have on hand - the ease, the innocence.

Everything was innocent then. The matriarch, my ex, myself. Because I was innocent.

Scrambling to feed my sickie self properly in a frenzy, my subconscious conjured up this matriarch, whose memory I'd buried along with many others, for the pain, for the memory of pain I had caused.

How I connected through food with folks who I wanted to be family, juxtaposed with how I long to connect that way with blood. We were almost there. Due to circumstances, it didn't happen, and probably never will. For that I am forlorn and sad. Always.

Here is the recipe that wasn't:

Mayo
Ketchup (tonight I improvised with a combo with Heinz chili sauce)
Lemon juice
Sugar
Mustard
Olive oil
Sriracha
Water

The fun part: put everything in a jar, screw the lid on. Shake like mad.

Adjust everything to taste and consistency. Even generic varieties will turn out tasty.

As I brought up with RJ tonight, Hulmes' America-born young nephew who would break bread with us at times back then would refuse to take his salad because we would only have this house-made dressing in lieu of ranch (the store-bought kind, of course).

He didn't know what he was missing. And neither did I.


*Not his real name