For R—She blew on my spark.

“What would you like for dinner?”

It’s a simple question asked across the world, every day, but can be so troublesome to answer. This time it was my Mother asking on the phone while I was trying to concentrate on the task at hand at my job as an accountant.

 “I have no idea. Can you just look at what we’ve got in the fridge and just figure something out please?” 

I don’t remember exactly how Mom responded. She probably said “Sure, Angel,” since that’s what she called all of us kids. I do know that I put the concern about dinner plans out of my head and got back to work. Mom would take care of it. She could work miracles with whatever she had on hand.

Later that same day, talking with her again about god knows what, she started telling me what we were having for dinner. She loved to talk about food, the tweaks she made to tried and true recipes, and her family’s pleasure in most anything she made. 

Mom had found we had some of that “squirrelly” pasta (rotini) so she cooked up about a pound of that. Looking in the fridge she’d found a leftover plain chicken breast, baby carrots, celery and apples. She explained that she chopped the carrots into bite-sized chunks and steamed them.

“Only twelve minutes Shauna, so they softened a bit, but they’re still pretty firm. Then, after I took them out of the steamer, I put them in the fridge for a bit to cool down before adding them to the rest.” The chicken was chopped along with the celery and apples (skins intact) and everything was tossed in the big Tupperware Mix-A-Lot bowl – she used the correct name for the bowl because she never really stopped selling Tupperware. 

“Well, it needed some kind of dressing, so took some mayonnaise and saw you had some Newman’s Own Ceaser Salad dressing, that’s good stuff! Well, I mixed a few tablespoons of the Newman’s Own with the mayo and added a bunch of black pepper then just tossed it in with all the rest. What do you think?”

Diplomacy

I distinctly remember the pause after that simple question. My brain was racing to think of a polite response that wasn’t “What in the hell?!”

What I did say was, “Well, that sounds questionable, but I’m sure it’ll be great. Thank you for taking care of making dinner Mom.”

How in the world was I going to get J—, my eight year-old son, to eat it willingly and not turn it into a scene. We’d raised him to eat a pretty varied diet and to eat what was put in front of him, for the most part, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat this . . . whatever it was, let alone make him. I can’t say I dreaded going home that evening, but I did not look forward to dinner. I was sure both J— and I would be hungry afterward.

I think we all ended up having seconds that evening and were excited to have leftovers the next day. Mom was delighted that I asked her to explain the recipe again so I could make notes and duplicate it later on my own. 

Naming Day

What should we call this recipe? It was really good, but we already have a recipe for “Goody” in our family and I like to give things interesting names, if they’re going to be named. I don’t know how many we suggested before I said, “Well, I said it sounded questionable, how about just Questionable Salad?”

That’s how Questionable Salad came to be. For several years it was a regular main dish, sometimes with a side vegetable or salad, sometimes all by itself. It was a recipe J— could make (he was just learning to cook) and have ready to eat when I got home at the end of the day. It’s been on many camping trips in big disposable bags and taken for lots of lunches. 

Life Changes

As I contemplated leaving my job of 16 years back in 2020, I mentally took stock of what I could do when I stopped working full time. I had no idea when I’d go back to work, just that I needed to take a break and do something different for a while. I realize now that I was looking in my mental fridge for ingredients to use. I knew I wanted to try doing something with writing. I’d written a few articles for our hometown newspaper and received enough compliments to dream that I might actually be able to become a decent author. 

I started making notes of topics I would like to write about. I had thoughts and observations I wanted to share with others and stories to tell. If nothing else, it would be a record for J— and hopefully his children some day, so they can know me, not just about me. As I lay in bed one night, topics swirling in my head for my plan, I thought, what in the world would I call it? It would have to be something different, unconventional, maybe even weird. That’s just me, I like to make people question and look at things in unexpected ways. That’s when I thought of Questionable Salad. Throwing all those weird ingredients together in the big mixing bowl and making something delicious. Something unexpectedly good.

This blog is my Questionable Salad. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it. Hopefully we’ll all be encouraged to think in different ways and gain a new view on this amazing world of ours.