Chicken Salad Aloha

In the early seventies, my dad worked for Castle and Cook, the parent company for Dole Pineapple. There was a contest for employee recipes, and my mother invented a salad, based on a salad her mother had created, which then won one of the big prizes.

A year ago, I went to a Hawaiian-theme party and brought this salad, which was well received. Now, in clearing out my paperwork, I've decided to blog my transcription of the prizewinning family recipe, so as to share it with the world and allow me to throw the scribbled notepaper away (the original newspaper clipping is still safely in the family recipe folder).

So here's the recipe, winner in the Chafing dish sorcery & salads category:

2 cups diced cooked chicken
5 hard cooked eggs
1 can (8 oz.) Dole pineapple tidbits, drained
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup mayonnaise or sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of sugar
Few drops of lemon juice
1 can (1 lb.) peeled white asparagus, drained
lettuce

Combine chicken, 4 diced hard cooked eggs, pineapple (reserve a little for garnish) and almonds in a large bowl. Blend mayonnaise with salt, pepper, sugar and lemon juice. Pour over chicken mixture; blend well and let stand a half hour. If asparagus is not peeled, remove peel. Reserve some for garnish and gently mix with other ingredients, taking care not to mash asparagus. Line salad bowl with lettuce and fill with salad. Decorate with reserved hard cooked egg cut into wedges, pineapple tidbits, and asparagus spears. Chill about one half hour before serving. Makes approximately 6-8 servings. Serve with warm toasted french bread and butter. On a hot day, this will make a refreshing meal.

I do not recommend not filing paperwork immediately upon receipt. Actually, I suppose I do recommend it, but the backlog of "things I don't have to deal with immediately" changing to "things I've misplaced or are expired or I've hid in the closet because I don't have time to deal with them now" finally reached critical mass and I spent an entire day sorting through paperwork that I really didn't have time to deal with, except that there was enough of the damn stuff I had to deal with it or it was going to go from squating to demanding voting rights.

Besides, it had my passport, and I'm going to Westercon in a few days, in Seattle, and on the off chance I decide to go up to Canada for a day afterward, it's a good thing to have. Not that you technically need one to visit Canada or Mexico, but when I visited Mexico a few years back, I got one just in case, and it turned out I did need it since I was a double for some German guy the police were looking for in Vera Cruz. His passport picture actually looked more like me than mine does, and while the police gave some bogus story about him accidentally withdrawing $100 extra from an ATM, I doubt they search not only the mall but the outbound bus station for anything so trivial. Good odds it was some drug deal they were investigating.

Anyway, the paperwork yeilded up my passport, as well as a few other things which will turn out useful on the trip. One is the extra set of photos of the New Orlean's cemetaries that I promised to Rob Alexander last time I was up that way and then never mailed him. The other, more sadly, is a personal letter from Gerald Pearce from three years ago. Gerry just died recently, right after a con in San Diego we both attended. As I understand, he caught pneumonia on the way back, and his son is going to be at Westercon for a memorial service for him.

Gerry was only seventy-four, and it's not much of a guess that his son is wanting stories of his father that his father never told him. Stories his friends from fandom could.

Gerry Pearce was a wonderful old gentleman, and the world's a much poorer place for him being gone. And a richer one for him having been here.

Well, today I've got Blogger working again, after the new update reset my ftp posts. Big headache to find a small thing, but fixed now.

And would have done this yesterday, had I been able to post, but just got the pdf galleys for Seven Seasons of Buffy, which yours truly has an essay in.

In which your intrepid alchemist scours the internet and discovers several new definitions of a word he already knew. Not appearing in any one dictionary:

Word of the Day

nabble

v.

1. work quickly (Scots Dialect, from "The Hoose of Haivers"), 2. arrest (Aussie slang, diminutive of "nab"), 3. steal (Thieves Cant, syn. pinch, pilfer, swipe), 4. have sex with (Regency slang, syn. screw)

n.

1. A vagina (American slang)




Unfortunately alot of these designs are extremely difficult to find. .... I've only ever seen once, and a friend was fortunate enough to nabble it before me!

Just late this week, they nabble another suspected drug pusher in the same barangay. Mis Oc could be Drug trade hub.

I knew it was a matter of time before someone was gunna try and nabble one of fords Drivers.

An entertaining subplot involved the servants ... and one of Lady Harriet's maids being determined to nabble said valet.

U journey downward your tongue following my bodies delicate lines and finding my nabble.

Word of the Day

ineluctable

\In`e*luc"ta*ble\, a. [L. ineluctabilis; pref. in- not + eluctabilis to be surmounted, fr. eluctari to struggle out of, to surmount: cf. F. in['e]luctable. See Eluctate.] Not to be overcome by struggling; irresistible; inevitable. --Bp. Pearson.

The ineluctable conditions of matter. --Hamerton.

Word of the Day

quinquereme

\Quin"que*reme\, n. [L. quinqueremis; quinque five + remus an oar: cf. F. quinqu['e]r[`e]me] A galley having five benches or banks of oars; as, an Athenian quinquereme.

Word of the Day

bravura

\Bra*vu"ra\, n. [It., (properly) bravery, spirit, from bravo. See Brave.] (Mus.) A florid, brilliant style of music, written for effect, to show the range and flexibility of a singer's voice, or the technical force and skill of a performer; virtuoso music.

Aria di bravura[It.], a florid air demanding brilliant execution.

Word of the Day

hellikin

A minion of darkness, an imp or demonling. (Apparently a portmanteau word formed from "hellion" and "mannikin" by W.H. Auden in his poem, "Horae Canonicae.")

Word of the Day

freeperati

n.

Pundits, columnists and celebrities whose comments, pronouncements and quips lead the call-and-response of the Republican echo chamber, the words of the freeperati repeated as gospel by the freepi. (c.f. freeper, literati, glitterati)

(Coined by the author of this blog in the comments section of Making Light and currently being popularized by Atrios at Eschaton.)

Word of the Day

gamine

n.

1. An often homeless girl who roams the streets; an urchin.
2. A girl or woman of impish appeal.

Word of the Day

motherwit

n.

Wisdom, common sense.

Word of the Day #2

valetudinarian

A sickly or weak person, especially one who is constantly and morbidly concerned with his or her health: “She affected to be spunky about her ailments and afflictions, but she was in fact an utterly self-centered valetudinarian” (Louis Auchincloss).

adj.
Chronically ailing; sickly.
Constantly and morbidly concerned with one's health.

Word of the Day

schist

n.
Any of various medium-grained to coarse-grained metamorphic rocks composed of laminated, often flaky parallel layers of chiefly micaceous minerals.

Word of the Day

bling bling

n. Ostentatious and showy jewelry, clothing and assorted trappings of wealth, as displayed by rappers and wannabe gangstas.
v. To display bling bling.
synonym: gauds

Note: Today included in the Oxford Dictionary.

Word of the Day

balaclava

n.
A warm woolen hood covering the head and neck, worn especially by mountain climbers and skiers.
A similarly styled hood often covering the shoulders, as worn by soldiers and sailors or as protective clothing.