Salad with Egg Dressing

Week 481. Summer 2025. I am 42 years old and standing in my kitchen — the Bench house kitchen, the one that held cancer and divorce and cinnamon rolls — and the stove is on and something is cooking and the house smells like grilled food and garden herbs and this is my life. This is the life I built.

Brett came Wednesday. We sat on the porch and talked about nothing, and the nothing was perfect, the way nothing between siblings is always perfect — full of history, empty of agenda, the purest form of company.

Mason is 14 and navigating middle school with the quiet competence that has always been his way — focused, kind, certain of who he is in a way that took me thirty years to achieve.

Lily is 12 and riding horses with the fearlessness of someone who has never considered the possibility of falling.

I made tomato sandwich this week. The food continues. The food always continues. It is the thread that connects every week to every other week, every year to every other year, every version of me to every other version — the woman on the kitchen floor, the woman at the chemo recliner, the woman at the grill, the woman at the outdoor table under the string lights. All of them, connected by the food they made with their hands. All of them, me.

The tomato sandwich came first — thick slices, good bread, nothing complicated — and this salad came alongside it, the way it always does in summer, because a meal like that wants company that doesn’t ask too much of you. Egg dressing is one of those recipes I make without thinking, the kind that lives in muscle memory rather than a written card, and on a week when Brett sat on the porch and the kids were just themselves and the house smelled like everything good, I didn’t want anything fussy. I wanted this: cool, creamy, a little tangy, and completely ordinary in the best possible way.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

6 cups romaine or leaf lettuce, torn into pieces
2 medium tomatoes, cut into wedges
1/2 cucumber, sliced thin
4 radishes, sliced thin
3 large eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons fresh chives or parsley, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Hard-boil the eggs. Place eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cold water by one inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from heat, and let sit 11–12 minutes. Transfer to an ice bath to cool completely, then peel.
Make the egg dressing. Separate the yolks from two of the hard-boiled eggs and place them in a small bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until smooth, then whisk in the vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, sugar, and garlic powder until creamy and well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Prep the salad. Arrange the torn lettuce in a large shallow bowl or on a platter. Scatter the tomato wedges, cucumber slices, and radishes over the top.
Add the remaining egg. Slice or chop the remaining hard-boiled egg (plus the two egg whites from the dressing) and arrange over the salad.
Dress and serve. Drizzle the egg dressing over the salad just before serving. Scatter chopped chives or parsley over the top if using. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Salad with Egg Dressing — The Food That Connects Every Version of Me