Watercress Salad

The first ripe Brandywine of 2022. It was ready Wednesday morning, perfect: full color, yielding under my thumb, warm from the sun. I did not deviate from the protocol: brought it inside, sliced it thick, flake salt, nothing else, ate it at the counter. It was everything it was supposed to be. That's all that needs to be said about the first tomato of the year. Some events are complete in their description.

Bill arrived on Thursday. He drove up from Maine — seven hours, he said — and came down the drive in a truck that had seen work, which told me something about him. He's seventy-three, broader than I'd imagined from his letters, with a handshake that told me he'd worked hard for most of his life. We stood in the driveway for a moment when he arrived, two old men who'd been writing to each other for two years, meeting in person for the first time. He looked at the farm and said: it's real. I said: what did you expect? He said: I don't know, something smaller.

I made a farm dinner for him: grilled corn, sliced Brandywines still warm, green beans from the garden with almonds, a piece of salmon. Simple enough to let the ingredients speak. He ate everything and was quiet about it in the way of someone who is tasting something they've been reading about. At the end he said: I understand the blog now. I said: what do you mean? He said: I mean I understand it from the inside now, not just the words. There's a difference. I said: yes.

He stayed two nights. We talked for most of it.

The meal I made for Bill that Thursday was built around restraint—nothing to distract from what the garden had actually produced. The watercress salad I’ve come back to every July since follows the same principle: peppery greens, a clean sharp dressing, maybe a few things alongside that deserve to be tasted on their own terms. It fit that table the way the right word fits a sentence. When someone finally arrives after two years of letters, you don’t want to be fussing in the kitchen—you want something that comes together fast and then stays out of the way.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

6 cups fresh watercress, thick stems trimmed
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 red onion, very thinly sliced
1/3 cup shaved Parmesan
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon flake salt, plus more to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper

Instructions

Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and minced garlic until emulsified. Season with flake salt and several cracks of black pepper. Taste and adjust—it should be bright and a little sharp.
Prep the greens. Rinse and dry the watercress thoroughly. Remove any thick or woody stems. Place in a wide salad bowl.
Add the components. Scatter the halved cherry tomatoes and sliced red onion over the watercress. Add the shaved Parmesan.
Dress and serve. Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving and toss gently so the watercress stays upright and lively. Finish with a pinch of flake salt at the table. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Watercress Salad — The Kind of Simple That Earns Its Place at a Farm Table