No 51 • Action
First, I have a confession to make: In my Ingredient column in our Issue No. 50 (Spring), I wrote: “I think emulsification is overrated.” I was talking about the inseparable mix of oil and vinegar in salad dressing, and my point was that seeking the perfect, smooth blend is not worth the trouble; just put ingredients in a jar and shake, and if they separate after sitting awhile, well, whatever. But I was wrong. That iconically silky French-style vinaigrette is worth perfecting.
I discovered my faulty thinking while I was testing recipes to teach in a cooking class at the Dorothy Lane Market Culinary Center in Dayton. One of the dishes I was teaching, from Dorie Greenspan’s delightful cookbook Around My French Table, has a lovely, simple, mustardy vinaigrette that has become my platonic ideal of salad dressing. The ingredients are whirred together using a food processor or immersion blender, and the result is a flavorful combination that holds together in the fridge and keeps for two weeks. (Email a request to me at if you’d like the recipe.) I stand by my proclamation that store-bought bottled salad dressing is nasty. But Dorie’s recipe is absolutely worth the task of washing the food processor parts by hand. I’ll be making it all summer.
With that out of the way, a few thoughts about this issue. We on Team Edible ask ourselves: What are the larger issues affecting our local food economy and what do our readers need to know about them? Two stories in this edition hit on those questions. Polly Campbell helps decipher the massive U.S. Farm Bill, in the works for 2023, and how it touches everything we put on our tables, from commodity milk to local tomatoes. And in the Last Word column, Cincinnati’s Food Equity Coordinator Jasmine Robinson helps those of us fortunate enough to not worry about how to feed our families understand what life is like for those who do. Food access, government crop insurance and subsidies, living wages for farmers, farmland affordability, SNAP benefits, support for minority growers—all of these issues weave together to influence what we buy, from whom and where, and what we pay. So we need to educate ourselves. And if you’re moved to take action, Polly’s article includes some resources to do so.