or as Leonard Cohen puts it:

“Give me back my broken night / my mirrored room / my secret life…”

 

In this case, you’ll be getting a healthy combination of romaine lettuce and Olympic jalapeños. The “Olympic” means you don’t have to sweat them (either).

 

The original Caesar salad, from the hands of Tijauna’s Caesar Cardini, was comprised of whole leaves of romaine lettuce, tossed at the table with a host of other ingredients (the dressing). It included neither anchovies nor jalapenos. And we don’t grow anchovies. Which means, for you, toss together the following:

 

the tender leaves and heart of your romaine lettuce

3/4 cup croutons
1 coddled egg

1/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese

 

If you’ve never coddled an egg, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Warm an egg (hugs) and place it in a coffee cup. Pour hot water over it and let it sit for 10 minutes. Neither cooked nor raw, pampered nor ignored: it’s coddled.

 

Then mix together the following:

 

2 cloves of minced garlic

the juice of half a lemon

1/4 cup of olive oil (and then some, if it’s good)

coarsely ground black pepper

2 jalapeño chiles, roasted and skinned and pureed.

salt to taste.

 

What that means is that you either broiled the chiles or dry-roasted them on the stove, until the skin was black and blistered. Then, when cool, you scraped the skin over and either blended them or chopped them finely with a big knife. The jalapeños take the place of the Worcestershire sauce. A man from Tijuana should be proud.