The Beets

I'd like to introduce you to someone.

This is Ruth (center).

Ruth was born in Nebraska in 1899. As an 8-year old child, she moved to Idaho with her family in a wagon train to take up farming. A farmer's daughter, then a farmer's wife, she married my great-grandfather shortly after her first husband's death.

All told, my great-grandmother married three times, raised 4 daughters and a son, churned butter, made quilts, and kept a garden and who knows what else. She collected teddy bears and salt shakers, buried two husbands and one daughter, left situations that were intolerable, and made pickled beets for her family.

I was about 8 myself when I tasted her pickled beets. I don't remember what they tasted like, but to this day, 20 years after her death shortly before her 90th birthday, my family still talks about her beets.

So I'm trying to recreate her beets recipe.

Single Potato ISO creamy, low-fat dressing

Let me just start out by saying that I love potato salad. At least, I always thought I did. Potato salad, in my world, should be equally made of potatoes and eggs, seasoned with celery for crunch, onion for spice, and pickles for tartness, the assorted flavors held together by a creamy Miracle Whip glue.

I don't, however, love making potato salad. For a household of 2, the cutting and cooking of the potatoes and eggs, plus the various dishes that are required to cook and mix all of it - too much work for a pair of busy working people.

I've been on the hunt for several weeks now for something unique - a potato salad that made people sit up and take notice. The evil genius of potato salads, as it were.

My first attempt, a couple of weeks ago, came out bland and traditional, not much different from the salad available at the deli.

Tonight's follow-up came closer.