Summer Nostalgia

One of my summer food goals was to make something that G and I remembered from our childhoods.

For G's nostalgic summer dish, I summoned a whole meal from the way back machine.  I made a summer supper straight from Syracuse, NY.  

Grilled steak, corn on the cob, and salt potatoes.

I always love corn season because G loves it so much.  His eyes light up when I ask him to shuck some ears.  Once I take the steaming hot corn out of the pot, he's right there ready with salt and butter.  Then he goes to town.

Years ago, on my first trip to Syracuse while dating G, his family introduced me to salt potatoes.  I'd never heard of this.  It turns out central New York has a history of salt production, the area was loaded with salt springs.  In the 1800's Irish salt miners would bring potatoes for their lunches and boil them in salt brine.

If you go to the grocery store in Syracuse, bags of baby white potatoes are sold with a salt pack included.  Oh, and they must be baby white potatoes, as G advised me before I left for the grocery store.

For my summer throwback recipe, I chose to make broccoli salad.  I remember my mom making this and bringing it to potlucks or picnics.  

First of all, I've always admired a dish called a salad that is decidedly not healthy.  Is that a Midwestern thing?  I feel like there's a whole category of recipes that have the audacity to call themselves salad while being highly caloric or laden with sugar or both.  Your potato salad or macaroni salad.  Your seven layer salad.

The broccoli salad is comprised of yes, that cruciferous vegetable, but also, cheese, bacon, mayonnaise.  A trio of ingredients that scream for a dose of statins.

I think I like it because of the textures.  The blanched, tender broccoli that still has a bite.  The chewy dried cranberries.  The nuttiness added by the sunflower seeds.  The sharp bite of the diced red onion.  And of course, the cheese, the bacon, and the mayo dressing.