Tuesday, March 6, 2012

A Different Kind of Macaroni Salad

Richie will occasionally buy a smll tub of macaroni salad at the supermarket. He likes it. I regard it as: macaroni elbows mixed into a glop of mayonnaise and garnished with a teaspoon of sweet pickle relish.

Yesterday afternoon, he said, "I'm going to make some macaroni salad" and I shrugged, never having looked up from my book. But at dinner, he lovingly brought it out and -- it looked.... different. I couldn't see any mayonnaise at all! Just a sort of shimmer to the macaroni.

"What did you use for the dressing?" "Red wine and olive oil," was the reply. It was actually good.! I didn't feel my arteries hardening in protest.

INSALATA DI PASTA
8 oz. elbow macaroni
3 T olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
1/2 cup mayonnaise (Aha! It sneaked in there!)
2 minced green onions
1 chopped red, yellow or green pepper
Parmesan cheese and minced parsley for garnish

Cook and drain the pasta.

Mix all the other ingredients together in a bowl big enough to also hold the macaroni and toss it in. Mix well, refrigerate and serve at your leisure

This is a recipe from the late Betty Evans. It's kind of a fairy tale life that she led -- after WW2, Gordon used his Army scholarship stipend to marry her and whisk her off to Paris so that he could become an artist. They lived a Bohemian life - ramshackle studio, raucous friends - all "just like in the movies." They were married for a very long time and they loved to travel. Betty wrote the cookbooks; Gordon did the illustrations. Rome (from whence this recipe came,) London, Paris, Venice... I don't think people live like that any more and it's too bad.

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