This weekend I plan on eating a lot of all-American food: popcorn! Chocolate ice cream! Hot dogs and diet Coke! Throw in some hamburgers and fries, ketchup and I may not be able to buckle myself in for the drive back. Even though I won't be cooking I had already been thinking about all-American foods in honor of Independence Day when I came across Garrison Keillor's post in Salon, where he inveighs against oddly yellow, store-bought potato salad. I thought, those poor people, they just don't know what the good stuff tastes like.
You will need:
--one large russet or two small waxy boiling potatoes per person (once they start, they won't be able to stop)
--one egg per six small potatoes.
--Best Foods Mayonnaise
--salt
--chives or green onions
Place potatoes and eggs in pot, bring to boil, lower heat. Set timer for six minutes. After six minutes of a simmering boil, remove eggs. Continue boiling until potatoes are tender. Drain.
When cool enough to handle, peel waxy potatoes (or perhaps you cleverly planned ahead, and did that before you put them to boil). Peel the eggs.
I like slicing the potatoes in half, and creating thin half scallops, but some people prefer cubes.
Place your sliced potatoes in your serving dish. Salt. Grate your hard-boiled eggs onto the potatoes. Salt lightly. Lavish your wonderful mayonnaise on top of this, to taste. Gently mix.
Throw in a tablespoon or two of minced chives, mix gently again, and toss a few more on top for garnish.
I prefer it room temperature to refrigerator cold. Wonderful stuff.
Which prods me to remind you, starving reader, that potatoes, from Peru, are a new world food, just like tomatoes, corn, chiles, beans, chocolate, etc., etc. People on both of these north and south continents refer to their countries as part of "the Americas." Yes, indeed, proud to be an American.
