I had another contretemps this week.

As we pulled into the driveway and I pushed the remote on my visor to open the garage door, I felt the car shake and on opening the door was met with a full-on gale heading north toward Alki Point.

I got out and with the wind blasting me managed to grab the cluster of plastic bags full of groceries and stagger to the garage door.

Yikes, the door had stopped at three feet open. Instead of putting the bags down and beating my way back against the storm to the car, I squattted and bent and wiggled under and placed the provender on a table.

As I turned to assist Elsbeth, who was by then stooping under the partial door opening, I heard a crash. One of the bags, the only one with a bottle, had fallen off the table and was now a glistening glop of Caesar salad dressing and broken glass.

Five bucks down the tube. I had left it too close to the edge. We create our own hells. Right?

I quietly cleaned up the mess with some old towels from my shop. Elsbeth barely frowned. She would have used paper towels.

The wind continued to howl outside, no doubt amused at what it had wrought.

I had planned on making a Caesar salad for lunch so I asked Elsbeth how she would do it . No problem. She graciously handed me her own recipe and I followed it religiously. It turned out great.

Here is her recipe:

One crushed garlic bud

One tsp. salt

One-fourth tsp. of pepper

Half a tsp. of dry mustard

One-fourth cup of olive oil

One tbs. lemon juice

Two or three tbs. of grated parmesan cheese

Mix in a jar. Shake well.

Fill a bowl with cut up hearts of chilled romaine lettuce. Add tomato wedges and some shredded parmesan cheese. Pour on dressing and toss thoroughly.

If you want a gourmet salad, buy a roast chicken at the deli section, tear it apart and top your salad off.

Oooh oooh good. It is a little work but it beats scraping it off the garage floor.