My sister, Susan, often has cookouts during the summer months especially on long holiday weekends. Her former home had a big garage in the back where she kept a second refrigerator primarily for that purpose. It was always well stocked with the makings for a fine outdoor feast: assorted drinks, burgers, hot dogs, chicken, and of course homemade salads.
It was one of those homemade salads that would become a family folk tale, which I'm sure will be passed on to future generations.
It was Labor Day Weekend, sometime during the 1990's, and Sue's cookout was in full swing. The burgers, dogs, and chicken were all cooked to perfection and it was time to bring out those delicious homemade salads. One by one we carefully carried them from the refrigerator to the picnic table and uncovered them. It was then we noticed something was amiss with the potato salad. In fact, something was very wrong with that potato salad-it was green! We just kind of stared at it until my Mom finally spoke up:
"Sue, I think there's something wrong with your refrigerator, the potato salad turned!"
"Oh no Mom", my sister casually replied, "That's the potato salad from the Memorial Day cookout, the good one is on the bottom shelf in the fridge."
For those of you unfamiliar with American holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day are three long, hot, summer months apart.
Well, all of us ladies quickly ran into the garage, not only to get the good potato salad, but mostly because we were all laughing so hard and we didn't want the other guests to know what was going on.
And we tossed that moldy green potato salad before anyone else could see or eat it.
We still tease Sue about this, and I think she cleans her refrigerator a bit more often, especially before a cookout or other party.
Here's a recipe for a sweet potato salad I like from allrecipes.com. I do alter it a little bit because that's a bit too much pepper for me and I use a little bit more potatoes. If you make it this weekend, it should be aged to perfection in time for your Labor Day cookout (just kidding!)
2 comments:
Lynne,
Those 'cook-outs' looked really tempting and just drooling at what is on offer!!
Then my dreaded 'tooth' let me know if I was to even attempt - it would remove itself - painfully!!
I guess I would have to just stick with the salad - still tempting though!!
Enjoy your Sunday.
Peter, I guess corn-on-the-cob is out of the question for you also (but not a corn-cob pipe!) Please take care of that tooth-you don't want to end up in the emergency room like I did one weekend from an infected and painful tooth.
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