Let’s See...

Now, where was I? Thank you! That’s right. Mayonnaise!

My Mom doesn’t read Pink Granite. It’s not that she’s dissing me, it’s that she doesn’t have access to a computer and has little interest in changing that status. So I was on the phone with my Mom and I told her (with only a modest degree of trepidation) that I had posted THE recipe for our family’s Chicken Salad. Lightning did not strike. But she did want me to review the recipe with her - not the entire post mind you, just the recipe! Actually, just the recipe for the Chicken Salad; once again the soup was irrelevant! So I’m reading the recipe to her and I get to the third ingredient “Cain’s Mayonnaise” and she says: “No!” To which I say: “Hunh?”

Turns out, that while for my entire adult-living-out-from-under-my-parents’-roof-life I have always used Cain’s mayonnaise, my Mom uses Hellman’s! A whole lot of: “No! Really?” ensued and much backing and forthing and surprise on both ends of the phone line. I have to admit I had this one terrible moment when my heart was in my throat and I thought: “I ruined THE Chicken Salad recipe - I am my own bolt of lightning!” But as we continued to discuss the ingredients we found common ground in our mutual horror at the thought of Miracle Whip or any “light/lite” mayo-ish products tainting THE recipe. And Mom did approve the remainder of the ingredients and my instructions. (Although she found the chocolate chip cookie dough analogy somewhat disconcerting!)

But what impressed the heck out of me was that by the time we had parsed the entire recipe and process she said: “I’ll have to try the Cain’s mayonnaise sometime.” My Mom’s 84 years old - 85 next month. It’s her recipe and it was her mother’s before that. Yet, after a detailed discussion of mayonnaise and why I prefer Cain’s to Hellman’s, she wants to try it! Go Mom!