In a few short minutes my mom will be here for a vist. Great! I love my mom to pieces and mostly we get along swimmingly well :0
However, the issue of food and my mom is always a controversial one, especially since my attempts to go “off white” started interfering with her ability to please her little family through some of our tradition eats.
Nothing is more political in the Fellows family household than food. It’s a form of control, manipulation, celebration, argument, attention, and generally a charged subject. As much as I think fondly upon family dinners and mom’s cooking, there is just this underlying feeling of judgement that comes out in bizarre food comments…
…like when my mom came to OR to help me moved and referred to my almond butter as “looking like poop” when I bought some for breakfast one morning. Nice. Thanks mom.
I repied (read: sarcastically): Well, I could say a few things abotu your 32 0z of Starbucks coffee you get every day, but I don’t (even though I basically just did). You get the point.
So, back to today. Mom’s a picky eater at other people’s houses anyway, and always claims not to be hungry at mealtime when she doesn’t feel comfortable eating at your house. This includes her daughter’s house….so after some extra kitchen scrubbing this morning, I decided to go with something benign: Salad. Who can complain about a nice chopped salad.
The chopped salad is like the Switzerland of food options with my family. We all eat it, you don’t have to be a food radical to make it, and I won’t mention the locally grown produce I used to put it together with (another family irony: they’ve had a garden for years but think the Organics/local movement is a bit of radicalism…whatever).
Mom’s bringing the meat (once a mom, always a mom -can’t come empty handed!), so perhaps today’s meal will be more like a Peace summit than a warzone.
For those who want the salad recipe:
Switzerland Salad (name for the metaphor, not the actual country):
3 hearts of romaine, thinly chopped
3 small sweet peppers (or 2 bells), chopped in small pieces
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 grey zucchini (or green), sliced and finely chopped
8 green olives, chopped
1/2 can organic black beans, rinsed
Dressing:
4 tbsp EVOO
1/3 cup each: cilantro and scallions, finely chopped
salt, to taste
Mix all the veggies, and then mix the dressing separately. Add dressing to salad, thoroughly mixing.
