Rare Foodie-type Post for Simple Folks

 I am totes making this today.




( image, from flickr )

You can find the recipe here:  Layered Salad



There's a packet of frozen peas over at 'my other house'( that would be the house with a freezer ) and I was looking at it last night and wondering if I just bring home a cupful at a time, in a little seal-it baggie, that would be fine. 

But I keep forgetting the baggies.

And today is supposed to be 40 degrees, so a cold poolside salad will be fun, different and un-ewe-shoo-al, right?

I often get on little nostalgia kicks.
I had my first banana fritter since I was about 10yrs old the other night. 
We hankered for Asian, but our favourite Thai was shut, and so was the other place we'd been meaning to try.  So we drove past the place my friend always gets takeout from.  Closed. 

Bummer.  Now what to do?  We all wanted Asian food.


Which lead us to an apricot-hued suburban in the next strip. 
It was filled with people from my neighbourhood the type i've never seen before.  A table of lads with mum and dad, they were all wearing thongs and looked like they'd popped in from the cattle muster.  A table of old biddies that have probably been meeting weekly there since 1960.  They were discussing how to get refunds on eBay. 

I felt like it's stepped into a country town from 20yrs ago ( besides the eBay bit ).


And the food was of the era too.  AB's scallops were sans roe, and punched out of the same extrusion they make seafood sticks out of.  Everything had frozen peas in it.  Bad.  The type of bad you'd forgive if the servings were generous, or the prices lowered.  But they weren't.

But HELLO!  This meant I was still hungry after the meal, and .. OH MY GOD, should I?  I totally wanted to, but was a 30yr old banana fritter memory worth revisiting?.

Oh yes it was.

Because, my friends, they may prefer to order their meat & veg from "Frozen Bulk Catering Goods Inc" ... but that banana .. was picked from the tree of the Gods, then lightly dipped in the most exquisitely light golden batter, fried perfectly and served with excellent vanilla icecream and caramel sauce.  In that kitchen, my friends, was a dessert chef forced to churn out the beef & blackbean to indifferent suburbans and waited, oh he waited and waited and waited .. for someone to order the banana fritter.

And we did.  And it was good.  My 8yr old's eyes popped with delicious appreciation and OMG.
What tastes do explode on yonder tongue?

Because Mummy deep fries NOTHING. 
Mummy spend her formative years as a dishpig for her parent's wonderful dinner parties, which often featured oil, and mummy says, if we want deep fried anything, we order it when we are out, for some other dishpig to clean, who is presumably paid.



So onto the Layered Salad.

I haven't had it since in my 20's, and my family never has either - because (a) my kids weren't born and (b) my husband was still dreaming of me and how i'd be the love of his life.  Lucky him.
I'm probably much better in dreams.  But anyway.

I've been meaning to make this for OH, 20YRS NOW.

But despite my upwardly trending suburb, I don't know many people with pools having parties, where I can swan into with my delicious dish.  And l'm lazy.  totes lazy.  I'm the chick doing the stop by Safeway where the fam' stay in the car with the motor running and I emerge in under 2minutes flat triumphant with beer and gin and tonic and potato chips and sausages on the way - whoo-HOO!

In my 20's the hot party items were:

- Layered Salad
- a dip made with Worcestershire sauce, cream cheese, spring onions and a hint of tomato sauce.  Maybe some sour cream - i'm not sure, but it's probably still printed on the side of the JATZ packet.

Klassy.

Anyway, it's interesting that my google lead me to the Pioneer Woman .. who didn't exist in my 1992.. but if anyone can layer, it's the Americans ( have you ever had a layed Mexican salad - OMG )

Wish me luck! x