Now I am in trouble...

We are out on Long Island and we will be here for a couple of weeks...

My mother-in-law has a limited repetoire of dishes, but they are all considered classics within the family. Therefore, I screw with them not.

Or at least we don't talk about it.

Or we didn't.

Until Fun Daddy spilled the beans last night. Literally.

See one of those classic dishes is the green bean salad. The recipe was originally that of Fun Daddy's Boma. Everyone spoke highly of it... but especially when Boma made it. But, she passed away in 1991. Since then, the salad has been the sole domain of my MIL and it is lovely and tasty.

She hand frenches green beans (haricots vertes) from the market... cooks them, drains them, cools them, adds chopped shallots and parsley and then dresses them with a vinagrette of white vinegar and olive oil. It really is quite tasty.

Over the past six months or so I have been goofing around with the recipe. Why? Because I can and that is what I do.

First I cheat by buying frozen frenched green beans. Frenching them by hand, while an act of love, is not something I would put my time into. Instead of simmering, I blanche the beans... not so much that they are the greenish grey of a canned green bean, but the bright and crunchy green that says, "Wow! See how fresh I am?" (please note that Boma's beans were also unmercifully cooked as well... and NO. I am not speaking ill of the dead, but of the dead's food... slightly different, I believe).

After blanching them, the beans are immediately plunged into a bowl of ice cold water...Yes, I have THAT much ice these days...no more running the cold water for me! This stops the cooking process and keeps the color of the vegetables.

I throw the finished vegetables into a bowl and add chopped shallots (or green onions, or red onions, or yellow onions... you get the idea), the chopped parsley and then toss on my own home-made vineagrette which tends to vary but generally includes:

2 T. Dijon mustard
2 T. Sherry vinegar (red wine vinegar or verjus work too, I prefer the oomph of the sherry)
a pinch of french thyme
some garlic powder,
sea salt and black pepper to taste
and 3T. olive oil.

These go into a covered jar and are shaken until emulsified.

Pour over the beans and toss... serve immediately before the vinegar start changing the color of the beans and making them look grey as if I had cooked them for a hour anyway!)

Personally, I like my version better. But I would never say that... it isn't nice to top your hostess... Not that this stopped Fun Daddy. Sigh.

No wonder the woman never eats anything that I cook.

Salad? Groovy!

I was finishing up my kid-cooked dinner of hot dogs and buttered macaroni last night. But I needed a little something more. So, after searching the fridge and finding slim pickings (we are cleaning out the fridge and pantry in anticipation of the return to the auld sod), I turned to a childhood favorite.

Salad.

And not just any kind of salad. Chopped iceberg lettuce and the dressing of my choice. In this case, red wine vinaigrette.

As I chewed through my cool crunchy treat, I thought about the lowly iceberg lettuce and wondered if it had ever had any respect?

And the truth is? Not really. Not outside the United States anyway. Within the U.S., iceberg lettuce was the epitome of 1950's, 1960's American culture. Readily available, uncomplicated and bland.

Outside? well kind of the same thing. We all enjoyed it, albeit from a guilty pleasure standpoint. Otherwise, we get to make fun of it.

But here is the thing.

Lettuce is wild!

It's antecedents were full of trouble.

For instance, Herodotus, Father of History, tells a story about Persian kings were serving salads at state dinners in the 5th and 6th century BCE. But when do you serve the salad? At the beginning of the end of the meal? Well, there seemed to have been a debate about it even in the ancient world. The Greeks, Romans and Egyptians all believed that salad induced sleep and therefore should be eaten at the end of the meal. But there were others that felt that lettuces stimulated appetites and even male virility (think fast bolting plants and dripping white liquids).

That liquid? Well it is a milky chemical called lactucarium, or lettuce opium. And it is a mild psychotropic, sedative and analgesic. For this reason, the Emperor Domitian would service salads at the beginnings of his state dinners in order to torture his guests as falling asleep in the presence of the Emperor would be the height of rudeness.

And lettuce opium? When reduced it forms a smokable paste that has been used in the U.S. since 1799.

Maybe that is what Leona’s was thinking of when they named their salad the Psychedelic Salad.

Either way, it is groovy, man.