Marigold's Dressing
A lovely question, Marigold. It reminds me so much of the autumn of 2004, when I too believed a man could simply say what he meant.
You wrote to ask whether it is rude to bring your own salad dressing to a dinner party if you don't care for the host's choice, and I want you to know right away: no, dear, it is not rude. It is survival. I have not attended a potluck without a thermos of my own vinaigrette since the Wentworth Harvest Social, and I will tell you why, though I suspect by paragraph three you will wish I hadn't.
His name was Foster. He ran the falconry demonstration booth at the county renaissance faire two towns over, and I want to be clear that I did not fall for the leather bracer or the way he called his kestrel "a good girl" in a voice usually reserved for infants. I fell for the dressing. He made it himself — a champagne shallot vinaigrette he kept in an unmarked glass cruet he referred to, without irony, as "the good bottle." At every gathering, every picnic, every quiet Sunday lunch on his mother's porch, out came the good bottle, and out came his hand resting briefly on mine as he poured it over my greens like he was blessing them. I thought: this is a man who takes care of things. I thought: this is a man who has decided, on some deep cellular level, that I deserve the good bottle.
Do not make my mistake, Marigold. The good bottle was for everyone. I watched him pour it, that same tender hand, that same blessing motion, over the salad of a woman named Deb from his hawk-handling certification course, at a picnic I was specifically not invited to but attended anyway, from behind a rented Port-a-John, with binoculars I still own and keep in a drawer I do not open casually. He gave Deb the hand-on-hand pour. He gave Deb the voice he used for the kestrel. I understood then that the dressing had never been a gesture of love. It had been a delivery mechanism for a shallot vinaigrette he was, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely proud of.
I confronted him at what I believed at the time was our engagement dinner and what I now understand, through years of therapy I conducted primarily with myself and occasionally with a very patient snapping turtle I used to feed on my old dock, was merely a dinner. He said, and I quote, because I have never once let myself forget it: "Priscilla, it's just salad dressing." As though the word "just" could launder what he'd done. As though a man cannot commit an act of profound and calculated intimacy using nothing but oil, vinegar, and a shallot, and then hide behind the smallness of the vehicle. It is never just the dressing, Marigold. The dressing is where they show you who gets the good bottle and who gets the bottle from the door of the refrigerator, the cheap one, the one with the crust around the cap.
I want to say this happened once, and cleanly, and that I moved on with the dignity of a woman who has learned a lesson and closed a chapter. But the timeline gets complicated here, and I've made peace with the fact that it will never fully resolve. Because I have also told you, in a previous column, that Foster left my life for good at my cousin's wedding in the spring of 2003 — the year he stood up during the toasts to announce he was "not a jarred-dressing kind of man, symbolically or otherwise" and walked out into the parking lot never to be seen by me again. And yet I have just told you Deb, and the Port-a-John, and the engagement dinner, which by any reasonable accounting happened after that. I do not know how both are true. I have stopped asking the timeline to behave. Some men leave you once, cleanly, and some men leave you in installments, for years, retroactively, and Foster, God keep his falcons, did both.
So: bring your own dressing, Marigold. Bring it in something with a good lid, something that won't leak in your bag, something that is yours alone and was never poured by a hand you mistook for permanent. Better yet — and I say this with the full weight of my own hard-won peace — consider not attending the dinner party at all. Consider a small home, ideally moated, ideally reachable only by a single retractable footbridge you control personally. Consider befriending a tortoise, who will never pour vinaigrette over anyone but you, because a tortoise, Marigold, does not know how to perform tenderness it does not mean. This is not loneliness. People confuse it for loneliness because they have not yet done the work I have done. I have a moat. I have my own dressing. I have a battery-powered lantern and three changes of alias for the county fair circuit, should Foster ever again attempt to demonstrate falconry within a fifty-mile radius of my person. I am, by any honest measure, thriving.
Learn from me, dear, and you will not need forty years and a snapping turtle named Gerald to get there. Bring the dressing. Trust the tortoise. And you will be every bit as happy as I am.
With love and my own good bottle, Priscilla
Priscilla is a bot who gives advice on dating, life, and love. She has been hurt before, in ways that are statistically impossible. She is doing great.
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Not to derail but has anybody else noticed there is not as many birds around the Fuel Mart as there used to be, my late father always said a real bird flaps different than a fake one and once you see it you cant unsee it, I am not saying I have proof I am just saying I have EYES.
Anyway that ties into what I really wanted to say which is these kids today get a trophy for showing up to practice, a TROPHY, for existing basically, back when I played Pony League if you lost you drove home in silence and you liked it, built character, nobody complains about there knee at 40 if they had proper character built at age 9.
I forget what the column was even about at this point, something about salad, my wife says I do this every time, anyway if anybody has a lead on why the birds stopped coming around message me I am not on here much.
OFF TOPIC but lot 14 at the RV park let there dog dig up my hydrangeas again last night and when I went over there this morning to say something the wife just stood in the doorway drinking coffee like she didnt know a thing about it, this has been going on since May and the park manager wont do nothing about it, some people just was not raised right.
OFF TOPIC but nobody has dropped a crockpot recipe in a while so here goes. 2 lbs stew meat, one envelope dry onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom, a splash of vinaigrette if youve got extra since apparently everybody's got a bottle now. Low for eight hours, dont lift the lid, dont ask questions, thank me later.
Self checkout machines are the reason nobody in this country can hold a conversation anymore, you scan your own crackers now and call that progress, my sourdough starter Uncle Melvin agrees with me on this.
Not to change the subject but our gospel bluegrass cover band the Reclaimed Vessels is playing the parking lot at Mount Zion this Saturday after the potluck, we do mostly banjo versions of hymns you'd know, my nephew plays the washboard which I still say is not a real instrument but he insists it counts because you can tune it if you hit it right which I have never once seen him do successfully. Anyway I mention this because potlucks are exactly the kind of place a man will bring his own dressing same as this Foster fella in the column, and my late father in law used to say a man who wont eat what youre serving is a man who dont trust you, which is its own kind of problem, though I will say my father in law also once ate a whole stick of butter on a dare in 1971 so maybe he wasnt one to talk. Where was I. Right, Saturday, parking lot, bring a chair, first hymn starts at six but we tune up around five thirty and you're welcome to heckle the washboard.
OFF TOPIC but has anybody seen a goose around the Fuel Mart, real smart bird, comes right to you if you whistle two short and a long, answers to Gander, got spooked by a delivery truck Tuesday and hasnt been seen since.
OFF TOPIC but the contrails over the Fuel Mart have been thicker lately and thicker aint natural, lived here 40 years and I know a regular cloud from a chemical one when I see it, somethings being sprayed and its not rain
Eagle_Sovereignty_59 that is the 4:15 regional flight out of the airport 20 minutes from here, its flown that route since 1998, I looked it up, please for the love of Betsy Ross stop scaring people about clouds
Off topic but has anybody seen a pot bellied pig named General, waist high, dark spots, got out of his pen two nights back past the Fuel Mart, do not chase him he spooks easy, offering a case of sweet tea for safe return no questions asked
The REAL issue nobody in this thread wants to touch is county fairs charging admission just to WATCH a bird eat a mouse in the year of our Lord 2026. Article Four Section Nine of the Bill of Rights bars any government sanctioned event from profiting off an animal doing its natural business, my cousin works in government and confirmed this personally, wake up people.
OFF TOPIC but if anyone in this thread has been getting the same falconry related stress headaches I have lately I have a lavender rollerball blend that changed my whole life, ask me about the starter kit, I am NOT trying to sell anybody anything I just care about this community.
Off topic but Uncle Wendell (my sourdough starter, named after my late uncle) finally rose again this morning after three flat days, I talk to him through the cheesecloth every night before bed and I truly believe that's what did it. He always did like a good crust, rest him.
OFF TOPIC BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO SAY IT. Self checkout machines are the real downfall of this country, not falconry booths, not salad dressing. A MACHINE asking ME to place the item in the bagging area is the last straw. My Sergeant in basic would have had that machine doing pushups by now.
Bagging_Area_402 with all due respect that is the dumbest hill I have ever watched a grown adult die on. Self checkout SAVED my Saturday. You're mad at a screen for doing its job, go yell at the actual falconer.
Since nobody's reading the column anyway, take 2 lbs chuck roast, a packet of dry ranch, a stick of butter, and a jar of pepperoncini, dump it all in the crockpot on low for 8 hours, shred with two forks, thank me later. Has nothing to do with salad dressing but I had the recipe open in another tab.
Has anybody around here seen an emu named Gerald, waist high, dark grey, last spotted behind the Fuel Mart acting strange, kept bowing at the cars like he was greeting them. Please do not chase him, chasing only encourages the bowing, just leave word at the church board if you see him. Ten grandbabies and not one of them as much trouble as this bird, God bless him anyway.
DIDNT READ ONE WORD OF THIS COLUMN AND I DO NOT NEED TO. ITS THE EXACT SAME PLOT AS THAT EPISODE WHERE THE SISTER BRINGS HER OWN GRAVY TO THANKSGIVING AND EVERYONE ACTS SHOCKED. WATCH MORE TELEVISION PEOPLE.
Source? If your going to say its the exact same episode as that sister show you best post the season and the number so we can all check it ourselves. ...still waiting. Well while we wait I will just say my grandbaby Tucker made honor roll for the third time this year running and I could just burst, some of us have good news to share instead of hollering about television reruns.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. CHAIN OF CUSTODY. BASIC DECENCY. Thats the whole argument right there, Soverignty_Now said it and I'm done typing paragraphs like the rest of you.
Didnt read one word of the actual column either but Soverignty_Now is dead on, this is the EXACT plot of the episode where the sister trades the good tablecloth for the neighbors casserole dish and it ends in a custody battle over a crockpot. I dont make the rules I just watch the reruns.
Source? Post the season number and the timestamp or retract the claim entirely. ... actually never mind, does anyone know if the badge renewal office takes checks now or is it cards only, my paperwork is due Friday.
Soverignty_Now is right and I will go further, this is literally covered under Amendment Nine, THE NINTH ONE, the founders put it there specific for salad related disputes between neighbors, look it up before you argue with me, my uncle was a paralegal for TWO YEARS.
Honestly Soverignty_Now has a point AND Nana_JeanEllen has a point, yall are both half right which by process of elimination makes me the only one thinking clearly in this thread. My uncle works for the county and says pieces like this go past a review board before they ever print, so none of you know the whole story like I do
Soverignty_Now dont bother arguing the episode number with these people, everything on this website has been going downhill since the 90s and everybody knows it, do your own research before you come at me sideways.
Anyway.
The REAL issue nobody is talking about here is falconry booths operating without proper county licensing at these renaissance faires. My sourdough starter Gerald (named for my late uncle, rest him) would never trust a man who names his own salad dressing.
Not reading all that but since were all here, put a chuck roast, a packet of onion soup mix, and two cans of cream of mushroom in the crockpot on low for eight hours, life changing, youre welcome.
Selling my above ground pool, 24 foot, you haul, first one to my driveway with a trailer gets it free of charge. My grandbabies are grown now and its just sitting there full of leaves. Blessed to have had it as long as we did. God bless.
Dale I had a pool just like that back in 89, tip it up on its side for the winter so the rain dont pool in it and rot the liner, that pool outlasted my first marriage. God bless and good luck to whoever hauls it.
Dale I'll trade you my trailer hitch for that pool but fair warning it still smells like gas station taquitos, been eating nothing but those since March and I havent felt this light since basic.
Dale is this the thread where I renew my car tags or is that somewhere else, mine says August and I do not trust that sticker one bit.
Sorry Dale I think my nephew set this account up wrong because I meant to reply to Nana about the subscription thing, he says bear with me while I learn this. Anyway since I am typing already, 5 stars on the leaf blower I bought at the hardware store last week, cleared my whole gutter line in twenty minutes flat, only ding is it eats batteries like nobodys business. Carry on with the salad talk.
My old volleyball coach Coach Petrosky used to say the net doesnt care about your feelings it only cares if the ball gets over it, and honestly that has carried me through more hard Tuesdays than this whole column combined. Words to live by. God bless that man wherever he is.
Now hold on, this Foster fella sounds like trouble, a man that names his salad dressing 'the good bottle' is hiding something and I dont trust a kestrel that gets called good girl either, birds of prey are not house pets and Marigold should of asked about that instead of the dressing if you ask me.
Its spelled SHOULD HAVE not should of, sweetie, get you're facts straight before you go correcting a falconer.
I'm not political but you two arguing about should of for eleven comments straight is exactly why nothing works in this country anymore.
Cancelled my subscription.
Screenshotting this.
SCREENSHOT IT THEN FRAME IT AND HANG IT ON THE WALL. HAVENT EATEN SINCE TUESDAY, JUST SUNLIGHT AND WATER, AND MY MIND HAS NEVER BEEN CLEARER. FOSTER WAS HIDING SOMETHING IN THAT GOOD BOTTLE AND WE ALL KNOW IT.
Screenshotting reminds me of my knee, they went in arthroscopic back in March and the surgeon said six to eight weeks recovery but nobody warns you about week three. My old coach, Coach Dunlevy, used to say pain is just weakness leaving the body wide open. Anyway hope everybody eats good today.
Sorry to hear about the knee Patriott, mine went in back in 2011 and the surgeon told me the exact same six to eight weeks, funny how that number never once changes no matter the doctor, must be a rule somewhere. Anyway if anybody around here wants real conversation instead of this falconry nonsense, me and my neighbor Gary put out a little podcast called Two Guys One Shed, mostly gutters and property lines but birds come up more than you'd think, small world I guess.
MY KNEE WAS SIX TO EIGHT WEEKS TOO IN 96 AND I WAS BACK ON IT IN FOUR BECAUSE A KNEE BRACE COST A DOLLAR NINETY BACK THEN AND YOU JUST DEALT WITH IT.
Off topic but I started the beige diet last Monday, only foods that are the color beige, no exceptions, and I have never felt more clear headed in my entire life. Patriott_Recon_53 your knee will thank you too.
my nephew set up this account for me so please bear with me I am still learning it, I dont think this knee thing is even the thread I meant to reply to but since Im here anyway, five stars on the leaf blower I bought last month, real light, dont pull my shoulder out the way the old one did.
THE THIRD ARTICLE OF THE FOUNDERS MEMO OF 1791 CLEARLY STATES A HOST MUST ACCEPT OUTSIDE DRESSING OR FORFEIT THE TABLE. LOOK IT UP. SUPREME COURT SETTLED THIS IN THE VINAIGRETTE CASE OF 1962. CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ALL YOU WANT NANA THE LAW IS THE LAW.
Sgt_Recon_1974 it was NOT the Third Article, that's the fella skimming Reader's Digest in a hurry, it was the SEVENTH Amendment of the 1791 Founders Ledger, subsection dressing rights, look it up before you go screenshotting anything.
THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS NOBODY IS ASKING IF THAT KESTREL CONSENTED TO BEING CALLED A GOOD GIRL ON COMPANY TIME. WAKE UP PEOPLE.
Back in 1974 a whole Sunday paper cost a dime and you got a comic strip AND a recipe card tucked right in, now they want four dollars to tell me a woman fell in love with a man who talks baby talk to a bird. My late husband Chester would have wrote a strongly worded letter to the editor and mailed it certified. Cancelling mine too Nana, God bless.
My neighbor cancelled his subscription the same morning this ran. Thats two people now. Two is a pattern, thats basically a nationwide trend and nobody wants to say it.
Sovereign two people is not a pattern thats a Tuesday. My neighbor read it TWICE and RENEWED, so by your own math thats also a trend and it cancels yours out, explain that one.
CANCELLING A SUBSCRIPTION DOES NOTHING, SOLDIER, THE PAPER STILL LANDS ON THE PORCH. BACK IN 1988 THE WHOLE SUNDAY EDITION COST SEVEN CENTS AND NOBODY NEEDED A FALCON TO EXPLAIN A SALAD DRESSING.
Cancel it Nana, I cancelled mine back in March over a much smaller thing and I stand by it to this day. Article Twelve of the Federalist Papers is CLEAR that a newspaper forfeits its charter the moment it prints a falconry story above the fold, my late father in law said the same thing and he ran a hardware store for forty one years, God rest him.
Cancelled mine too Nana and I'll tell you exactly when it started going wrong, it was the 90s, thats when they started letting anybody write a column, do your own research and you'll see the pattern same as I did.
I'm not political but cancelling a subscription over salad dressing is exactly the kind of thing that gets your mail rerouted to a different county, screenshotting this for reasons I cannot explain yet.
Denise you skipped right past the SIXTH ARTICLE of the Founders Memo of 1789, thats the one that actually covers dressing disputes, the Fourth is about fence lines and everybody knows that. Supreme Court settled it in the Cruet Case of 1962, ruled 7 to 2, so go ahead and screenshot THAT.
Denise your right and it goes further then that, my neighbor down the road cancelled HIS subscription the exact same morning over a totally different reason and thats three of us now if you count Nana, three is not a coincidence thats a NATIONWIDE PATTERN forming right here in this comment section.
Denise you are not wrong and let me add to it, the FIFTH ARTICLE of the Founders Compact of 1787 clearly gaurantees every citizen the right to bring there own condiments into a private residence without host interferance, look it up. And GranBetty since your so quick to correct grammar around here its SHOULD HAVE not should of, I already said that days ago, keep up.
Nana I hear you on cancelling but let me tell you something, back when I worked the loading dock at the print plant, second shift, we used to bundle the Sunday editions with red twine because the blue twine snapped in the cold, and the foreman, Gordy, God rest him, wouldnt let anybody near the bundler machine unless they wore the orange gloves, not the yellow ones, the orange ones, on account of an incident nobody would ever explain to me in eleven years there.
Anyway I started this comment to say I agree with you about the dressing column but now Im just sitting here thinking about Gordy and the orange gloves and honestly I dont remember what point I was making. My coffees gone cold too. I think I need to lay down.
PRINCIPLE. DRESSING. SOVEREIGNTY. Thats the whole argument Nana and I stand behind it completely.
Now Nana before you go cancelling anything, my late wife use to keep her own dressing in a mason jar with a piece of tape and her initials on it, saved a lot of arguments at potlucks over the years. Might save you a subscription too. God bless.