Potato Salad and 4th of July

My apologies...I did not realize until I looked at my blog this evening that I wrote 3 posts about my health and eating... I feel like I'm out of it lately, not keeping up to date on things... now after seeing this...I know I am!

I was planning to write about potato salad tonight...but now, don't know if I should! But, I got such a kick out of Garrison Keillor's column lately titled "Inalienable rights include decent potato salad". I have to share my thoughts...he was bemoaning the fact that no one makes HOMEMADE potato salad anymore. He said he is sure that at every 4th of July picnic this weekend, "the famiy member assigned to bring the potato salad is probably going to walk in with a couple of gallaon plastic buckets of yellowish muck bought at a convenience store, the price stickers still on them, and set them down on the table with no apology whatsoever"!!! He asks that if you bring that "garbage" to share with your family, the least you could do is tell a good lie about why you didn't make it homemade. Now, if I did that, I would admit that I bought the salad because I can't make good salad myself. (Even thought Garrison says in his article that "It is not that hard to make potato salad people!" I have to say I have tried many times to make a potato salad, and it never gets good, so I disagree with him that it's easy. **** Garrison said it's not only potato salad that we don't take time to make anymore, its lots of things. He said that by not paying attention to details and taking time to teach our children that it's alright to "buy" stuff rather than make it homemade, that we are teaching them that accomplishment doesn't matter.

My personal take on potato salad- it is something that everyone makes so differently, and when you find a kind that you like, that's the kind you crave. My favorite potato salad used to be my Mother's...but NO one, not even if I use her recipe, can make it like she did. One of my friends makes the best potato salad (other than Mother's) that I have ever tasted. She knows that when she makes it, she must give me some! She says it's so good because it has a "secret ingredient" in it. She will not tell me what it is though. Anyhow, the other kind of potato salad that I like is Mt. Royal's Fine Foods salad from their deli. I have been craving that all through June, to the point that I would stop in there just for that... I'd get a small container, so not to eat too much. One time I bought a large tub of it to take to a potluck luncheon, ****just so I could have some of it the night before the potluck. (But, I never claimed that it was homemade", and I did transfer it to a fancy bowl, but if anyone had asked if I made it I would tell the truth...although no one did ask, so I didn't have to! ha ha) One week Mt. Royal had it on sale, you know I stopped there more than once that week.

My Mother's potato salad was made with a Pennsylvania Dutch boiled dressing, she cooked it using a lot of eggs, cooked with bacon... of course, it was the bacon that really made it so good (and of course, not healthy) as it included both the bacon and some of the drippings. She cooked it then let it get cold and she'd pour it over the cooked potatoes, and add seasonings and fresh parsley. It was so delicious. She gave me the recipe, and when I was first married I tried making it several times, and it just never got right. I finally gave up. I have seen dressings like it in PA Dutch cook books, and always think I am going to try it again, but then I think it's so much work, only for me to be disappointed. So, I don't.

I know some of my readers from PA will recognize her potato salad....I'm sure no one from Minnesota will. I think it's art was lost on the rest of the family, because I don't think any of my siblings and their families make her recipe.

Ok...I've had my share of potato salad for the summer, and now I've talked about it... that is the end of the potato salad now! No more....