Always Use A Condiment: Secret Sauce

The hippies were right

The Common Ground, which opened in Brattleboro, VT in 1979, was the first vegetarian restaurant in New England. My grandparents used to take me there on the way up to their place in Vermont, even before I became a vegetarian the summer after high school. Because they were both gardeners, they appreciated the (very prescient) commitment to local, organic produce and honest fare. They were not even close to being countercultural, but they liked good simple food and my grandmother enjoyed judgementally watching the hippies do their thing, man.

I would usually get the Square Meal in a Round Bowl, which was a rice and tofu situation with various vegetables (basically a veggie bibimbap) and then a choice of dressings from the salad bar. Of those dressings, one stood out head and shoulders above the rest. It was the first thing I ever reverse-engineered after eating it in a restaurant, and it’s been in my regular rotation since then. This sauce is incredibly easy to make, lasts a long time in the fridge, and makes everything it touches taste much, much better.

And not for nothing, this magical concoction is made mostly with two high-protein ingredients, so if you’re one of the bewilderingly large number of people who have fixated on protein as being some dietary panacea, this is the sauce for you—especially if you’re a vegetarian or vegan. It may seem counterintuitive, but this sauce can be the protein on your plate, freeing you up to focus on the diverse sources of plant fiber which do collectively actually add up to a superfood. You can enjoy this miraculous concoction with anything from crudités to fried chicken and you’ll be glad you did.