A cool spud salad for the Godfather

We thought Molly had a pretty cool godfather before we found out he actually attended the famous disco demolition at Comiskey Park in 1979.

Now, we admire him even more.

Molly shops hard each Christmas to find the perfect nutcracker for Steve. Last Christmas she gave him an “Occupy Wall Street” version and Steve’s hilarious thank you note related the story of how his Occupy Wall Street nutcracker refused to leave the mantle, which was making his Elvis nutcracker very angry.

Steve (and his wife Cary) have, piece by piece, given Molly a beautiful collection of crystal Christmas ornaments.

Each summer Steve sends Molly a list of things to do. This year’s list included “Walk around your neighborhood whistling,” “Go 48 hours without computer, television, cellphone, texts or other modern communication devices (except in an emergency,”   “consume a cheeseburger that contains more than 1,000 calories” and seven other challenges.

She responded with her own summer to-do list, which included “Read the Hunger Games books and then call me to discuss the ending of the last book” and “buy a lemonade from a lemonade stand” among eight other challenges.

Last night Steve joined us for dinner and, with temperatures soaring, we relied on an old standby to serve him grilled burgers and old-fashioned potato salad.

Steve’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

Here is our recipe for potato salad, handed down to me by my grandmother, who indulged my extreme aversion to eggs.

People seem to like it though, and no one ever mentions the missing eggs.

Baba’s eggless potato salad

5 pounds red potatoes

1/2  large onion, chopped

1/2 cup mayonnaise (to taste)

3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

3 tablespoons deli mustard

salt and pepper

Boil potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes or until a fork tender. Do not overcook or you’ll have a mushy potato salad. Drain and run under cold water.

Cool, then dice potatoes and add them to a large bowl with the chopped onions. (I used to peel the potatoes before I diced them, a waste of time I liken to the hours I spent learning Basic computer language in college. The peels add both color and nutrition and why learn Basic when you can drop and drag. Right?)

Add the pickle relish and mustard and gently combine.

Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until serving.

Two left-handed, deep thinkers. They both crack me up.
Rinse the potatoes with cold water as soon as you remove them from the heat because, otherwise, they will keep cooking themselves into a big pile of mush.
Chop one half of a large onion.
Add 1/2 cup mayonnaise and 3 tablespoons pickle relish. Then add more if you’d like.
This is what your bowl should look like before you gently mix it all together.
I forgot to take a shot of the potato salad in all of its glory, so here’s a shot of the leftovers. You get the idea. We ate a lot of spuds last night.

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