Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Who doesn’t need plenty of those, right?  What’s more, this Mandarin Salad will taste just as good year round, because everything on its ingredient list is readily available, and nothing is desperately seasonal.  (I love salads with, say, strawberries, but not so much come November.)  I candied the almonds instead of trying her ‘sweet sugared cinnamon pecans,’ because I’d like to keep my oldest daughter around for a while longer, and I used good white wine vinegar instead of plain white (because, well, because), but other than that I pretty much stuck to the recipe.  (Other than my lifelong commitment to being wildly generous with fresh parsley whenever it’s on an ingredient list.)  I enjoyed it so much that I made it twice in one week, actually; once for family night at my in-laws’, and then several days later for a funeral.  Give it a try this summer and then keep it around when it gets colder–it’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through!

(Please tell me you caught the Christmas Vacation reference so I didn’t just sound unbearably cheesy…)