Evan’s Blue Cheese Dressing

My friend Evan Kleiman is visiting us in Umbria this week. We are doing a tour together which starts tonight, and we will immerse ourselves in all things Umbrian – food, crafts, wine and even beer. But for the last few days Evan – as always – is indulging our cravings for typically American foods. Of course, being the pie queen that she is , she made us a perfect cherry pie with fruit from our own trees last night. She also made us one of my favorites: Iceberg lettuce salad with blue cheese dressing.

Here in Italy there is no such thing as ‘dressing’ when it comes to salads. It’s simply the best olive oil, with salt and pepper and perhaps some vinegar. I’ve posted variations of some of my personal salad variations here, here and here.

But when Evan realized that I had a huge head of iceberg lettuce in the fridge, she just looked and me and said “Blue Cheese Dressing”. Being in Italy she of course used a local version of gorgonzola.

I made sure she made a huge batch.. The first night we had our simple salad as a side to grilled pork chops which Evan seasoned with wild fennel pollen. Heavenly. The next day she made up a mixed salad with the rest of the dressing for lunch.  I also managed to scoop up any leftovers with a spoon, but I’m thinking that if I don’t thin it out so much with milk that it would make the perfect dip for my evening bowl of chips. That plus a martini counts as a meal, right?

If you’d like to join me on a tour in Umbria you can see our current schedule of tours here. And if you’d like to be the first to know about new tours (they sell out fast!) make sure you are signed up for the Premium Version of my newsletter.