Horseradish and Cling Wrap
With a high temperature in the upper sixties and no call for rain, I am eager to get out to the local shooting range and put a few rounds down range. This type of day in February is a rarity here in Pennsylvania. But first, I must prepare for supper tonight.
Since retiring some two years ago and Judy not yet retired, I have become a housekeeper and part-time food prep, when I’m not riding my bike or shooting or some outdoor chore. I’m no cook! To hang that label on me would be a joke and an insult to all cooks and chefs. Except for a pitifully few dishes, I just do what I’m told and how I’m instructed to do it.
Tonight’s dinner menu will be a simple one consisting of soup and chicken salad sandwiches, and it is up to me to whip up the chicken salad.
One of the ingredients that goes into many of my creations is horseradish, and chicken salad is no different.
Horseradish is a root vegetable made from the Horseradish plant. Ground up and mixed with vinegar and salt, it’s added with many recipes to give a spicy kick to dishes or a topping or dip to meat such as meatloaf and prime rib. Or anything you might want to spice up. (My favorite is to put a large dollop on a hard-boiled egg.)
My dad had planted some horseradish, before the purchase of the house and property by my wife and I in 1985, and it was around the late 1980’s or early 1990’s that mom and dad had come up to visit us one day when the subject of said horseradish plants came up in conversation… and that was all it took.
I headed to the garage to retrieve a shovel while dad maned the sink to clean and peal the roots.
I made several trips in and out of the kitchen with handfuls of roots while dad prepared them for grinding. Each time I entered the kitchen the pungent aroma of the root became a little stronger.
Judy and mom had been in the living room conversing about what ever mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law talk about, when the smell drifted into the room, and we were questioned as to our intent and knowledge of what we were concocting. We assured our wives that we had everything under control and that “This was going to be some good horseradish.”
Dad and I determined that it would be best to put the chopped-up roots into the blender to grind them to a coarse consistency before adding the vinegar and salt for a final blend. When we did, we set off bomb!
The kitchen exploded with a strong stinging odor that instantly watered our eyes and noses and headed through the entire house blanketing each room with a stinging aroma that no one could escape.
Judy and mom quickly retreated to the outside while dad and I were stuck in the kitchen with eyes watering and noses running so badly we could hardly see or even breathe and laughing so hard we couldn’t speak.
With all the windows and doors to the house open and a fan blowing on high, dad and I added the vinegar and salt to the blender calming the burning aroma to a tolerable level.
Dad and I finished our evil concoction with several jars each and stern warnings against ever doing that again. That was the last time horseradish was ever planted around the house. If I could go back in time, that’s one of the stops I’d make.
After I had finished with mixing the chicken salad, I covered the bowl and placed it in the refrigerator.
Has anyone ever been able to tear off a sheet of cling wrap without it sticking to everything, including itself, and not what you intend it to?
I hate using the stuff. I have never been able to tear a clean sheet of it without struggling to unstick it from itself to be able to use it.
It was invented, or more aptly, discovered, by accident by a worker at Dow Chemical in 1933 and first used as a protectant for planes by the military.
They should have left it at that. I’ll stick with aluminum foil.
Long Lonesome Highway 