Purple

Don't you just love the way light comes through a lettuce leaf?

Never mind that, I came to talk today about the purple potato salad I made last weekend when it was so blazingly and uncharacteristically steamy around here that we were all wilting. Our heat waves are usually fleeting but they can be a bear when they are in full swing. Because it's so rarely really hot where we live, we don't have AC, something we kvetch about on those few hot days.

However, it was great weather for spud salad and I happened to have scored some purple potatoes last time I was at the store on a quest for something I've never tried before.

I wish I could tell you that the purple ones made all the difference to the taste of the salad, but they were a lot like red spuds in flavor and texture. That's not a bad thing; there is nothing much better on this green Earth than a potato in any form - it just wasn't new.

Anyway, I did a riff on Molly Wizenberg's Dad's potato salad, mixing mayo, ranch dressing, dill and yogurt together for the dressing and adding finely minced (also in the purple family) shallot as well as chopped hard-cooked egg. The standout flavor was the shallot - almost hot and spicy, so I may have used a little too much - but My Beloved inhaled his portion and, if he hadn't been such a gentleman, he might have smacked his lips. I did smack mine.

The flavor was out of this world and the visual play of purple salad with green lettuce leaf was really lovely, especially with the sun striking light through the lettuce.