Give a man a fish...

I learned something this weekend. Give a man a bowl of macaroni salad and he'll eat for five minutes, but let him make his own macaroni salad dish, and it'll last fifteen minutes!

Apparently, I'm something of a Macaroni Salad Savant. While other kids my age were going to Seven Eleven (a convenience store like AM/PM or Circle K) to buy Big Gulps and Nachos and Dorito's, I went to the store for a container of Bob Ostrow's Macaroni Salad. I've always loved Macaroni Salad and can eat an entire bowl of the stuff myself - no problem. But until this weekend, I'd never challenged myself to make it. I've never had to.

In our neighborhood growing up there was Herb's Deli that made the absolute best Macaroni Salad (very creamy with loads of pimento)... okay, second best, cause the first best was at this deli called Bill's Deli in West Portal that, unfortunately, closed about six months after I discovered their mac salad. Anyway, for most of my life, there was Herb's as number one salad. But a close second (third?) was my step-mom's recipe. When Herb's closed (and Bill's), my step-mom's recipe became the number one recipe. However, convincing her to make Mac Salad is a hard thing to do. She makes it about twice a year and not always with the same gusto - so you might get a really good batch once a year. It was good enough, though, to satiate me for an entire year.

However, as I've been preparing recipes for a potential Hot Dog stand, I decided to try my hand at creating a serviceable Macaroni Salad that I could cook. It wouldn't be as good as my step-mom's, of course, but I thought if I could make it close, it would help the hot dog stand.

So, after putting out the bowl yesterday, I watched as my brother, sister, and Mom ate a bowl of the stuff. Their reactions were tepid and even though the salad had tasted okay to me I thought maybe I had a dud on my hands. Not wanting to get stuck with an entire bowl of salad, I told my family that I didn't want any leftovers and to help themselves. Ten minutes later, the salad bowl was empty.

Either I've created the pasta equivalent of crack cocaine, or else I just hit a macaroni salad nerve. Either way, I was very encouraged by the response. But since I'd siphoned off a little for myself for lunch today, I was even more encouraged by the fact that the leftovers were just as good as the original batch. This stuff rocks!

I will be hard pressed to keep from making Macaroni Salad now whenever the desire hits me. And already, I'm contemplating a way to raise funds for my trip to Kenya - one crackalicious bowl of Mac Salad at a time.

Speaking of Kenya and food and feeding, my Kenya Children's Mission Group sent off our first donations to the various programs in Meru last week. I just finished reading the responses from these very happy and thankful people and I am hooked. Not because I feel like some sort of hero for doing this - on the contrary, I am frustrated that I don't have MORE to give - but because I was allowed to be a part of God's great plan in Africa. Hearing that response was the same to me as when I finished five days of work building a monster playground and got to watch the kids run around on it. The kids didn't need to thank me. Their smiles and shrieks of laughter and total excitement was more payment that I could ever hope to receive. To Him be the glory, now and forever!

All this is preamble to remind everyone that this Saturday at my house is the Fifteenth Annual Burrito Night! Every year, on one special day, I host a Burrito Night Foodraiser! The task is simple. You come. You bring a topping. You eat Burritos! And eat. And eat. And eat! The COST of admission, however, is what makes the event special - a Food Donation for the San Francisco Food Bank. Because Nobody Goes Hungry on Burrito Night! (And that includes my dogs who look forward to this event all year! ;)

Like each of the last three years, my brother is running the grill and he's like a grilled meat savant. He can do amazing things with steak, chicken, and sausage. So, as usual, we'll have steak, chicken, sausage, beef and (maybe) shrimp, as well as all the fixings, sides, and wraps you can imagine. Please come by, have a burrito, and go home stuffed!

Oh, and please bring a donation for the Food Bank!

15th Annual Burrito Night
Pacifica, CA
(write for directions)
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
6pm - 8pm