nt trip to the Lake Ella farmers market, a trip that Logan dragged me on, we came across an old man with youthful spirits hoping to sell us multi colored potatoes. Cut them open and they could be purple, pink or even...WHITE! The action of buying the potatoes lead to an inexplicable chain of events, one of which was logan suggesting we make potato salad. You can imagi
ne my disapointment. Rikki and I say "if it don't have lettuce in it don't call it a salad". Honestly I don't want some nasty mayoed up potato cube that for some reason is yellow! I instead fantasized about making purple and pink french fries. However Logs had a different potato salad in mind and insisted mustardy mayo sauce (I was just informed the yellow in potato salad is mustard) will not be a part of it, instead it shall be a French potato salad.Ok. I have accepted the idea of a potato salad. It has evolved from a fear of mine to a perfectly suitable side dish. I want to emphasis the side dish because no matter what happens, potato salad will always and forever be a side dish. So what next, what would go well with this side dish-0-potato? Well she did say its french... what's a french main course? To be honest I'm still a little lost on what french food is. My lack of understanding how to define this type of food reminds me of the time logan was trying to teach me what savory was. "It just means salty right?" i insisted. I just didn't get it. Anyways, I understand french cuisine is good food, expensive and looks pretty, but what is it? Italian food is easy for me to imagine but not french. My mind turned to a nice little french lunch place in Naples where I had a lovely baguette sandwich with nice roast beast.
Logan comes back from the store with a pasty white baguette and 3 lbs. of smoked Boston pork butt. The butt was pink and reminded me of ham and we were unsure if it was fully cooked so we decided to call the expert. Mom. Unfortunately I called the wrong expert, i should have called my father the resident Hamxpert (Ham expert), because my mom didn't know if a pink smoked ham-looking boston pork butt was fully cooked.
In the end the potato salad was a smash hit. The salad of course had the three varieties of heirloom potatoes, dill, garlic, basil, onions, chardonnay, mustard and shallots. The sandwich was toasted with a sharp aged gouda and some capital T tender pork butt that was cooked with the said chardonnay to ensure the cookedness of the butt.
French? i dunno maybe... A satisfying dinner for two? Duh.
mary mom came by excelsior farmers' market yesterday and passed on your story of the cooked or uncooked pork butt, ah ha! Logs, there are now five bakers at the market-and NONE compare to the maker with the little blue bird stamp...
ReplyDeletei made french potato salad last week! red potatoes, a dijon shallot vinaigrette, haricot verte, bleu cheese and almonds. ohhhhh yeahhhh.
ReplyDeletesurprisingly, joe, most french food is casseroles. i think casserole is actually a french word. and if it's not a casserole, it's probably something stuffed with something else.
By casseroles you mean hot dish right?
ReplyDeleteJoe, Your phone call led me to believe that the roast in question was a smoked beef rump roast, something I had NEVER heard of and something I thought was a bit strange. For all you blog readers out there, This is what Joe said in his phone conversation to me, "Logan just brought home a smoked rump roast from the deli section of the store. It is wrapped in plastic, do you think it is raw or needs to be cooked?" I assumed a beef rump roast, I asked if was red, and he said, "kind of, with like white fat around it". I should have figured it out by then but still had "rump roast" in my head not pork butt. So, now I believe, what you had was a fresh (not cured) smoked ham. I am sure it made a delicous salad and one that I would have Yummed up. Sheesh Love,Mom
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