Week 26: Waldorf Salad, Hold the Mayo and the Melodrama

I’m halfway through my 52-week commitment (insert happy dance here)!

To be quite honest it seems as though I’ve run out of things to say…
Or maybe it’s that I’ve run out of things that I think folks want to
hear.

In the editing process, Rick’s feedback has been that I should go deeper into the stories and I believed, halfway in, that I would have gone deeper as well. But here’s the truth: pretty consistently in the past 26 weeks, I have dictated the first part of the blog and then gone back and deleted almost half (if not more) of what’s written. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s that I want this blog to be a positive experience for myself and the reader while also honoring my mom in death in a way I didn’t in her life.
And while there are plenty of positive attributes to my childhood and life with my mother, like most things in life, these are balanced with a tremendous amount of darkness. Diving into the history and emotion for the last six months has been
both cathartic and healing for me but I don’t think you all need to read about…
– the often violent relationship with my sister Kim.
– the feelings of abandonment I experienced regularly as a child
– times when I didn’t have heat or hot water because mom didn’t pay the bills
– the look on my mother’s face when she returned from the hospital
after my sister Karen died
– the story of how I punched a kid in a grocery store because he
laughed and called my mother fat (actually, you might want to read that one!)
– the daily fear I carried wondering if today was going to be the day
I found my mother dead

You see, you don’t want to read that stuff! In fact, I’m not so sure I want to write it… at least not now. And yet, it continues to press on my mind and heart.

So here I am six months in. Maybe this has not been the deep recipe memoir I thought it would be. But what it has been is a huge
challenge, confidence builder, and full of affirmation. And most of all,  it makes me feel closer to my mother.

I say, “Yay to six months and the process! ”

Original Recipe

The Process

Based on limited research of a small sampling of the population (about 10 people) I’ve concluded that Waldorf salad is a dish people either love or can’t stand to the point of making a gagging sound. I guess the combination of fruit and mayonnaise is just too weird for some people. So that was the first thing to change by substituting yogurt for mayo.  Next to go was the high sugar content.

The purpose of the orange juice is to keep the apples from going brown. Based on the title of the original recipe,  I assumed the 2 tablespoons of orange juice were from concentrate, which was easy to replace by squeezing a fresh orange.

Bananas in salads get mushy. To keep the tropical flavor I replaced the bananas with pineapple.

Traditional Waldorf salad included walnuts and the toasted coconut is used here instead, but I wanted a nuttier flavor. I used Brazil nuts for the tropical flavor, but I think macadamia nuts would be amazing as well.

The Results

This was a really tasty salad and would make a fabulous summer side dish with grilled chicken.

In the interest of kitchen science, I made two salads; one with mayonnaise and one with yogurt. I admit that I preferred the mayo flavor. Then I made a batch that was dressed mostly with yogurt and a teeny bit of mayonnaise and that did the trick.

Ingredients

Juice from half an orange (approximately 2 tablespoons)

3 Cups cubed crisp apples

(About two large apples one red one tart green)

3/4 Cup fresh pineapple chunks

1/2 Cup grapes (not tropical but it’s traditional)

1 Cup sliced celery

1/2 Cup shredded and toasted coconut

1/4- 1/2 Cup chopped Brazil nuts

Directions

Toast coconut in a dry skillet on medium until the edges are brown

 

Sprinkle orange juice over apples and toss lightly in a bowl.

Add celery, pineapple, grapes and chopped nuts.

Add enough yogurt and mayonnaise to moisten; toss lightly

Serve with a garnish of additional apple slices or toasted coconut.

Enjoy!

 

Hot  Off the Presses…

I thought I was ready to publish but this morning my heart had something else to say…

Fourth of July Remembrance

Loud noises, traffic, too much alcohol and people acting, well, let’s just say less than their best selves…until very recently I simply have not enjoyed this holiday and was not going to acknowledge it on the blog. Besides most of my Fourth of July holidays were spent with my dad and his family at our cabin and this experience is about my mom.

But my heart had a different plan because this morning I woke with a memory glimpse of me and my mom spending a couple of 4th of July holidays together. 

I think it was after I stopped visiting my dad and stayed home to work a summer job, or maybe there were a couple of years where I went to my dad’s after the 4th, these details are not in focus.

But what I clearly recall is watching the fireworks in South Kingston, RI while eating a Kentucky Fried Chicken picnic in the car. For the most part it’s a good memory, but there’s also a hint of shame and sadness involved on my part. I realize that I was willing to watch the fireworks with my mom only because we were going to be in the car. You see, I tried to avoid going places with my mom at all costs through my adolescence and even into adulthood. At face value, it might seem as though I was embarrassed by her and it reflected on me in some way. And while there may be some truth to that, I primarily avoided being out with my mother because the empath in me was so pained by the looks, snickering and teasing she experienced in a very cruel society as a morbidly obese woman. It literally made me sick and often caused me to break out into tears when we were out. I couldn’t stand the look on her face. She tried to hide her pain and shrug it off, but I could see how much it affected her and also her desire to shield me from the hurt she felt.

So this Fourth of July, I honor my mother’s love for pomp and circumstance, tradition and fireworks displays. I celebrate her strength and independence. And the freedom that she experienced when she finally died and was released from the body she had wrestled with all of her life.

Week 26 Recipe Pick

Sticking with cold summer recipes for awhile. I might make a batch of Sangria to share.

 

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July celebration!

Tags: cold salad, healthier recipe, less sugar, memories, picnic, side dish, summer