I love salad. I probably eat one every day and I’ve never found it necessary to use anything other than my mother’s dressing. I’d make a batch of dressing and keep it in a jar on the shelf (just like Mom), and whenever I ran out, I’d make another batch. For years, my brother Paul declared that our mother’s salad dressing was so good you could sell it. I began by offering it to friends, who encouraged me by sharing it with their friends. Soon, I started taking orders. I would deliver the dressing in recycled Clementine boxes I picked up each week from a guy named Mark at my local Whole Foods. One day, due to serendipity, curiosity, or a benevolent force, Mark asked me what I used the boxes for. I told him and he then asked, “If you make salad dressing, why haven’t you shared it with us?”

And so I did.