Alice's potato salad is what you call a French potato salad. Made with a vinaigrette. I used Chaparral Gardens Winter Ambrosia vinegar which I totally love. The recipe is very simple, which not everything in _The Art of Simple Food_ is. Actually I've made this twice in the last week. Believe it or not, I don't think I've ever made potato salad before in my entire life. I learned that the potatoes have to be whacked up into smaller pieces than you might at first think, and that both the potatoes and eggs chop up far more easily when chilled. I love this potato salad.
Here's more fun in the kitchen-- I'm now on Cooks Illustrated list to test recipes. Yippee! Someone actually wants my opinions! Tonight I made Spaghetti al Vino Rosso with Swiss Chard and Pinenuts, except I used walnuts since pinenuts are way too darned expensive right now. Simple Almond Granola is the next recipe to test. Bring 'em on!
Even though you'll never see me get over my life long love of real books, I have purchased a Nook Color (Barnes & Noble). Randy bought the simplest Nook Reader a few weeks ago and said we could "share." Right. ... (Crickets chirping in the background) ... Every time Randy has come home with something "we can share," we don't. However, I did some research and decided that if I were to get a Nook, I would want the color version since it does just about everything an iPad can do for a lot less money. And then a refund check came in the mail. Made out to ME! Seems that the insurance is paying for more of my implanted molar than the oral surgery thought they would. Mmmmmmmmmmm. What to do with this sudden windfall? Guess. I thought it was the voice of God speaking to me, "Buy a Nook Color, Sally." So I did. I'm learning my way around it a little bit every day. And still reading real books.
Now about the dogs. Well, let's back up a bit. A week ago we were expecting dinner guests for whom I had planned a terrific dinner and bought a $$$lot$$$ of groceries, if you take my meaning. They backed out at the last minute for no good reason. (And you wonder why I've been making all this potato salad....) Fortunately, we also had wonderful house guests early this week; they took the sting out. But then, my weaving study group came yesterday morning. Two women arrived with a total of 3 uninvited, unexpected dogs. I'll spare you the details except to say that I now have a trashed window screen that has to be entirely replaced, and a scratched-up front door. This is the fancy-shmancy custom-made-in-Santa-Fe Big Splurge front door. I could kill. Who in hell takes unleashed, unsupervised dogs to someone's house uninvited and unexpected??? I was speechless to say the least. When do you think that any of these people will be invited to my house again? You got it.
Well, so much for that. We really did enjoy the heck out of our house guests this week. One of Randy's PhD students from when he was at OSU, with his wife and son. They're doing to college tour thing, hunting for exactly the right school for their son. I'm cheering for CalTech so they can stop and see us more often. We're also expecting the wonderful plein aire artist, Becky Joy, to stay with us again in October. Becky wanted to come back to our house and we are totally delighted to have her. We have 2 of her paintings from last year and may add one or two this year.
Now all I have to do is use up 4 pounds of Meyer lemons that I bought for the fizzled dinner party. Sherbet, pies, sauces, chicken and olives and lemons (it's Tunisian). Yippee! Oh yes, and candied citrus peel. That's on page 382. Stay tuned.
98 recipes completed; 207 to go (time to get cracking here, Girl!)
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