So here it is, a brand new year. Everyone gets a chance to start fresh as a whole new year lies before us. What occurred in 2006 happened last year so we needn’t worry about it any longer, because this is a new year. The world is new!
It was at approximately 8:00 p.m. this evening that I said to myself, “OH MY GOD”.
Tomorrow marks my first day of this new life I’ve chosen as a struggling student. Since I am now unemployed and eager to impress my lover tomorrow (as the new cook of the house), I was installed in the kitchen cutting up vegetables to be packed with his lunch this week. After breezing through that task with all my fingers and toes still intact, I decided I would make us tuna salad sandwiches. It was then that I realized that at 38 years old while I had traveled in three countries, 42 states and had heard several different words for the carbonated beverage we call soda, I had never made tuna salad before in my life. Ever. Armed with several cookbooks from Williams-Sonoma, I can confidently say that while I can find ways to make things like Coq Au Vin, Lobster Thermador and Filet Mignon Almondine, there are no recipes for tuna salad to be found. Not even next to the picture of the smiling fish on the Chicken of the Sea can. I did find a guide to stuffing a tomato with tuna, but that looked rather risky for my first adventure as lunch line lady.
Now I know why my mother had her nose in that red and white checked cookbook back when we were kids. That’s where all the secrets are! All I can say is thank goodness for the internet. I found a lovely little recipe for tuna salad. I blended the recommended ingredients together and it came out looking like something edible. I didn’t have pickle relish as recommended so I chopped up some sweet pickles and threw in some of the juice. I was proud of myself for improvising.
I’m hoping that Earl is a good sport about my first attempt at making tuna salad, because there’s one other thing I learned from my mother: how to swipe a plate of food away from someone that’s complaining about it and then stuff it down the disposer.
Let’s hope we both survive tomorrow’s lunch to tell another tale.
