Mama Llama's Potato Salad

My good friend Matty O'Food lives all the way out in Santa Cruz, CA. We keep in touch daily via AIM. Our conversations can be a couple sentences long, or ramble on for hours. It's a great way to stay connected over long distances. Our two most common topics of conversation are golf and - wait for it - food. He passed along his mother's potato salad recipe for posting on this here blog thingy. I would try to explain the Mama Llama moniker, but it's a long story interesting only to those involved. Let's just say hand puppets are involved, and leave it there.

Mama Llama is an elementary school principal in Pasadena, CA. She is one of the most serene people I've ever come across; the stuff of children's books. I wish she'd been my principal in school. She's also a really terrific cook. When Matty and I lived in Los Angeles, we got plenty of her home cooking on the weekends, and I've envied her skills for years.

Mama Llama's Potato Salad

1 lb small red new potatoes 1 bunch green onions 6 oz peas, fresh or frozen ½ lb bacon ½ cup sour cream ½ cup Greek yogurt

Here are the Mama Llama's instructions in her own hand:

Boil potatoes until tender; cut in quarters. Cut bacon and cook until crisp, I like lots! Dice green onions. Reserve some bacon, onions, and peas for a garnish. Toss together potatoes, peas, green onions, and bacon. Gently mix in sour cream, salt and pepper to taste. Place artistically in a bowl and garnish with reserved bacon, green onions, and peas. This is enough for four as a side! (I think!) I always do it by feel and look! See, simple is always best, isn't it?

I was gonna go picnic style and make hotdogs, but my inner snob got the better of me. Instead, I grilled some sweet Italian sausages and served them with a fat dollop of brown spicy mustard on the side. A grown up picnic in the middle of the week.

The Llama family has an aversion to all things mayonnaise. It's my opinion that they've never had a good homemade one. Nevertheless, I cut Mama Llama's 1 cup of sour cream with a 50/50 ratio of sour cream and tangy Greek yogurt. The consistency is a little creamier and the flavor just a bit more complex. Anyone with a frayed copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook knows intuitively how well green onion and sour cream go together, and the old adage of Another Meal Made Better With Bacon couldn't be more aptly applied than here.

Yes, another simple feast from your trusty neighborhood Blog O. Food. And to think, we haven't really gotten into the thick of things yet.

Thanks for taking the time - Blog O. Food