Potato Salad Ninja

Defeat tastes like potato salad.

 

My goal yesterday was to make the best potato salad in the entire world. We had dinner with good friends who were crazy enough to buy at least 60 dozen racks of ribs and my job was to provide potato salad.

 

It’s a good recipe. The best.

 

I was set with the food processor, cooked potatoes, and all ingredients.

 

I even posted “I am a potato-salad-making ninja. I know you’re jealous,” on facebook.

 

My belief in my potato salad making abilities were at an all-time high. Until it all went sour.

 

Shortly after the chopping of the dill pickle but before the addition of the mayonnaise there was a revolt, led by the red onion.

 

The victim: My eye.

 

From out of nowhere the onion squirted its juices straight into my right eye, blinding me immediately.

 

I lurched around the kitchen, bumping into the refrigerator, careening off of the dishwasher, one hand to my eye while flapping the other hand frantically in the air, stomping my feet and howling, “Argh! My eye! My eye! Onion in my eye! I’ve lost my opticals!”

 

“Aye-ei-ei-ei-yowzers!”

 

I scared my children. I scared myself. I tripped over a misplaced baby doll toy and fell to my knees on the kitchen floor, crying to the heavens,

 

“Why meeee????!!”

 

It was the fourth longest 45 seconds of my life (the first three involved labor, a spinal tap and an anesthesiologist with an impaired GPS locator and a needle the size of a flagpole).

 

And then it was all over. Though I teared up off and on for awhile.

 

I am no potato-salad-making ninja. Not anymore. I have been humbled by the red onion.

 

But the food tastes great! Here’s the recipe (stolen from my mother-in-law), in case you’re curious:

 

Ninja Potato Salad

Potatoes (cooked in the skin, or not) cubed smaller than 1” square

1-2 hardboiled eggs (can be boiled at the same time in the same water as the potatoes)

Celery ½ cup or more

Dill pickles ½ cup or more

 

DRESSING:

Mayonnaise @ ½ cup

Grey Poupon mustard @ 1 teaspoon

Garlic powder to taste

½ Onion diced or onion powder to taste

1/8 cup pickle juice (too much is too much!)

Salt and Pepper to taste

 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cook the potatoes and let cool slightly so you can handle them
2. Cut up the potatoes
3. Cut up the celery and pickles and add to the potatoes
4. Chop up the egg and add to the potatoes, mix it all together
5. Mix all the other ingredients together and taste to see if anything needs to be added
6. Add the dressing to the potatoes and mix

Hint: It tastes better if you can make the day or morning ahead of time so all the flavors have blended together

 

Have you ever had to admit defeat to a food source? How long did it take you to recover?