Chicken salad! Just like my mother and grandmother made, though I add curry powder and a good deal more onion to the chicken, apples, celery, and mayo (homemade--I'll not get into the Hellman's vs Duke's controversy that consumes various Southern-based FB groups.) One of my earliest kitchen chores was cutting up the cooked chicken--with scissors, still one of my go-to kitchen tools.
There are potato chips on the side because that's part of the tradition. Potato chips are a rare treat around here--I remember one of the boys spotting a bag as I was putting away groceries and asking if we were having company--company and chicken salad being two excuses to buy chips.
Traditionally there should be a Sunshine brand peach pickle on the plate--but I haven't seen them in the store for years and am serving some oven roasted asparagus with cheese.
Chicken salad has been a constant in my life.
John's last posting in the Marines was at the air base in Beaufort (Bew-furt), SC, and it was ungodly hot in our rented duplex. I made chicken salad, tuna salad, and shrimp salad in a weekly rotation, doing the cooking early in the morning and spending the rest of the day reading in a hammock under the big oak that was the only good thing about that rental.
Some evenings we would go to the movie just to sit in the bliss of A/C. The movie changed weekly and some weeks we saw it twice.
Chicken salad--not just a meal but a repository of memories.
(Apologies for the crummy pictures--we were in a hurry to eat.)
5 comments:
I guess I am bad. I always have chips in the house.
That doesn't make you bad, AC. For us, though, chips and ice cream are too tempting and too coducive to weight gain. So they make only rare appearances here.
Looks so delicious. Scissors to cut up chicken, never heard of it, but sounds like a good solution! I do love fun stuff in chicken salad. Your asparagus looks "to die for." I grew up on chips, and often have to discipline myself to eat just one serving at a time. Pretzles too have become a goodie snack these days.
Kitchen scissors are my go-to tool as well -- they're ideal for making chiffonades as well as generally cutting up foodstuffs or herbs, plus there's no need to wash a cutting board afterwards if you can snip everything straight into the bowl or pan.
As for chips: a guilty pleasure, whether it's what the Brits call "crisps" or what the Americans call "[French] fries". Note that both are splendid vehicles for dipping. The Dutch are experts in the field of dipping sauces for fries; there's a French fry stand in Amsterdam that offers several dozen sauces, far outdoing the Canadian poutine. And last week, I treated myself to a bag of Ruffles and a container of tzatziki ... Bliss!
Lovely photos, Vicki, of a lovely lunch. Thank you. :)
I have fond memories of the frites in Belgium, sold on the side of the road. I chose the curry dipping sauce and was delighted.
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