Torrey's Ceaser Salad (san anchovies)

I love Torrey Nicholson. Yesterday he turned 6 and for his birthday requested that I make a Cesar salad, specifically asking for crunchy, not soft croutons. As I started to make it, I realized that I felt nervous. That I really wanted him to like it. That I had expectations of the results of my efforts. And suddenly that teaching of being passionate without desire made sense. Put everything you have without being attached to the fruits of your labour. Let everything you do be for the pure love and joy of the opportunity to serve another. And when you work this way, you become more discerning with who and what you are working for.

This made enough salad for 15.

1. Set oven to 350.
2. Chop or tear up 4 small heads of romaine from B.D. Wash and spin or lay out to dry.
3. Slice up some ciabatta bread into croutons (about 1 inch diameter). Melt some butter and olive oil together and toss croutons in the fat. Lay them out on a baking sheet and toast in oven till desired crispiness. I checked them every 5 minutes, and rotated them for about 15 minutes.
4. Mash up 4 heads of garlic and smoosh around your wooden bowl.
5. Finely Chop about 1/3 cup of yellow onion.
6. Finely chop about 1/3 cup of curly parsley. Mash Parsley and onion together with the garlic.
7. Add a smidge of sugar, overly generous tbl. of dijon mustard, overly generous tbl. of red wine vinegar, a few dashes of worshtishire and mash together.
8. Then I added the juice of an entire lemon and some fresh grated Parmesan. Lots of fresh ground pepper and a good amount of high quality salt cuz Torrey loves salt.
9. I had to transport the dressing, so i only poured in a little olive oil to suspend the flavors and transferred the dressing to a ball jar.
10. When I was ready to toss the salad, I added more olive oil (maybe 3/4 cup total) to the dressing and shook it up to mix. I tossed the dressing over the romaine, added the croutons and some more Parmesan and tossed again. Then sprinkled fresh Parmesan on top.