Florida: A Tradition in Mayonnaise

It takes my breath away how a place almost 900 miles from where I grew up can hold such vivid, beautiful and heartbreaking memories.  Maybe it is the regularity of it.  As certainly as spring arrives, we make the trek to northern Florida.  Over sixteen years, our family has grown, we have spread out further and further across the country, and our schedules have diversified; but still, we meet at the Gulf with tenacity.

  

Years ago, I would spend the night before our trip making sandwiches.  The way I remember it is endless rows of rolls that needed to sawed in half, the crumbs going everywhere.  Armed with a large jar of Hellmans and a butter knife, I would slap mayonnaise on the top half of each roll.  Faced with such a mundane task, my imagination ran wild.  As I put mayonnaise on roll after roll after roll, I was struck that, "the mayonnaise quivered expectantly." 

So thrilled was I with this description of making sandwiches, that I put down my knife, ran to my room and wrote it down.  As though there was a chance someone might steal it.  I don't know what I thought the mayonnaise was expecting.  Perhaps the anticipation of sharing its existence with shaved turkey was almost more than it could take?

No One is Safe

Sunday was a rainy day.  And a bit nippy.  I wore a sweatshirt as we ran errands.  Then when we got home, I wanted to bake.  I'd had my eye on this for a while, and I had all the ingredients.  Before I could give myself time to reconsider, the butter was melting in my cast-iron skillet.  In less than twenty minutes, I was eating a giant warm cookie out of a skillet.  With a spoon.  By myself.

I texted Jennifer a picture with a plea, "Save me!"

She wrote back, "YOU ARE SO BAD!"

Summer Lasagna and Cupcakes

It's been a while since I've written. 

I've been spending some time with this:

Santa Rosa Beach, FL

And this:

R enjoyed Aunt Lizzie's raspberries.

But now I'm back. 

That Salad. THAT SALAD

The recipe for THAT SALAD comes from here.  I'm not sure what it was the caught and held my interest - was it the picture of the pig conjuring up mixed memories or the writer's over-the-top description of being teased and pushed to your limits?  I don't know, but after a kaleidoscope of a day at work I found myself at Whole Foods putting the ingredients in my cart. 

The author at Food52 wrote about April Bloomfield's Lemon Caper dressing in glowing terms. It was the kind of description that makes you stop half-way through reading, look back , and question if you are still, in fact, talking about salad dressing. As opposed to Mother Theresa. Or penicillin. But I was intrigued by the idea of lemon segments in the dressing and her description of the acids working with the fats (which in April Bloomfield's case were fried pig ears).

I sent the link to Jennifer and she wrote back, "What on earth could you substitute for pig ears?" I wanted to find out.

Back with Banana Cake

Tax season is finally crawling to a close.  I'm finally dreaming about things other than work.  Like last night, I dreamt I was trying to cover super greasy hair with a big headband.  It didn't work.  But hey, at least it wasn't about taxes.

In the meantime, I made banana cake.  Through a series of peculiar events, I actually lost a bunch of bananas.  I found them a week later at which point they were good only for baking.  This was perfect, because I'd had my eye on this recipe. 

Breaking From Taxes to Talk About Cooking

"If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff." - from Ratatouille

My mom made breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I'd do my algebra homework to the scent of bean soup and freshly baked bread.  Our mac and cheese was always homemade.  So naturally, by the time I moved out, I knew how to follow a recipe and make a meal.  And it was when I was cooking for myself tht I really learned to cook.

An Employee Engaged

If I could, I would blog about my job.  When people hear what I do, they usually make some kind of polite, sick face that implies, "Poor you."  But to tell the truth, I absolutely love my job.  I am one of those obnoxious people that look forward to Monday mornings.  I regal Matt with work stories at night while he is wearily removing his tie.  I make a point of eating in the lunch room - not just to save money but because I enjoy conversing with my co-workers.  And even on the most trying of days, people never fail to be people and give me a reason to smile.