You know the deli section in a nice supermarket or even a Super Target?

You know where you walk up and there are all sorts of gourmet cheeses and specialty meats and a big glass cooler heaped-full of freshly-made salads? Um, yeah. Dave wants our refrigerator to look like that…all the time.

We are going to try, I guess.  Sort of .  This week.  Today, though, so it will all last all week.  Because we have things going, you know.

He started pulling salads from his 30-year memory bank, “Hey – what was that one salad you made…”  “Remember that one with broccoli…”  I mean, he went back to Kokomo 1981 and right up through the years.  Good grief.

The whole thing poses a two-fold problem:

1. Dave wants a great big selection he can just try little amounts of here and there.
2. I cook for crowds.  That is when and how I cook.  I mean, if I am going to make something uber-fab and delicious, then there should be enough to feed the multitudes.  Jesus would not have had to worry about hungry people if I had been around!

So, the theme of the day is tempering.  I must temper my desrie to make the world’s biggest ever, most-fabulous gourmet bacon-gorgonzola red-potato salad (forcing Dave to eat just that every day all day long for the week), with his desire for a thousand choices, many of which we’d end up tossing in a few days.

Here is where I think we are landing: Carole Loftis’ Broccoli Salad (Kokomo, 1981), Three-bean salad (pre-me, ick), Marinated Calamato and Gorgonzola (yum!), Chandra’s Corn and Black Bean Salad with Avocado and Cilantro (2009 was when this entered my repertoire, love it), and chicken salad with grapes and walnus and all that (mid-80s).  To accompany and change up at a moments’ notice: Barilla Corkscrew pasta and Ranch dressing, some provolone and Amablue bleu cheese, an assortment of crackers (Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Pita Chips), olives and pickles, and bacon because-I-am-a-bacon-nut and salami and ham, maybe some thin-sliced turkey.

Fire up the grill nightly for some steak or chops or chicken breast and, hey…hmmmm….this may actually be ok.  I am already thinking of next week: Thai Cucumber Salad, Garlic Sweet Pea Salad, BLT Pasta Salad, Asian Sesame Slaw, Popcorn Salad…

Well, maybe I should just wait to see how this week goes??

images: google