Grandma Schierling's potato salad.

Simple elegance. © Ryan Schierling

Somewhere along the line, you may have gotten the idea that family recipes are important to us. It's a great big reason this blog exists. A few years ago we even sent out emails to all of our family members asking for recipes that were tried and true from all points on the family tree. We wanted those recipes that we remembered eating and enjoying, that our grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles grew up eating and enjoying.

We wanted to write a cookbook for our families. Spiral bound, or printed in issues and sent out like a magazine, with recipes and photos and stories about where they came from, how they were inspired, or who made it best. We never managed to decide on a format – every recipe seemed to demand a different scenario.

What does this have to do with this 5 days of potato salad? Or this recipe?

Well, this is one of those recipes that until now I have only heard about, but never tasted. This is Ryan's Grandma Schierling's potato salad recipe, and it is one of the most simple and fascinating potato salads I have ever heard of. Oh, yes, there have been conversations with Ryan's folks about how it was made, the variations (or lack thereof), and all exchanged in tones of reverent affection for what was "Grandma Schierling's" potato salad.

I think she would be proud that we've chosen to take it from the archives, from her exclusive possession, and introduce it into our personal repertoire. I am thrilled to have a taste of a well-loved past and the proud German farming heritage that informed it.

This is the most gratifying potato salad of those we've made this week. There's a quiet strength in simple sliced potatoes, onions and hard-boiled eggs dressed only with salt and heavy cream. There is richly-satiated nostalgia and satisfaction in the sharing.

Ryan hasn't eaten this salad in more than 20 years, but he remembers it well… well, he remembers it in the way you recall a fragrance. It is the immediate recognition of a thing familiar, the texture, the temperature, the flavors collectively. I've been hearing for weeks about this gastronomic ghost from the past – the monochrome whites, the onion whose liveliness warms against the egg and cream, the shallow bowl and gratin-like presentation. It is every bit the decadent dish of his memories.

I never got to meet Grandma Schierling, but if she was anything near as lovely, unassuming and elegant as her potato salad, I would have adored her.


Grandma Schierling's potato salad

6 medium-sized waxy white or yellow potatoes, boiled until tender and sliced
1/2 small white onion, sliced thin
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
heavy cream
kosher salt

Boil potatoes until fork tender. Drain, let cool and slice thinly. This was probably the method Grandma Schierling originally used, but slicing the raw potatoes and then steaming them also works nicely, and makes for a pretty potato with skins intact.

Cut 1/2 of a white onion into thin rounds (or half-rounds, which are more mouth manageable) and rinse under cold water. Slice 3 hard-boiled eggs into thin rounds. In a shallow bowl, layer the salad as you would a gratin – a layer of potato, a sprinkle of salt, some onion and egg, a bit of the heavy cream. Repeat until the bowl is full. This salad is best served fresh and warm, or at room temperature.

Potato, potata.

Keep it simple. © Ryan Schierling

Our old neighbor Damir had a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to simple side dishes. This one isn't a fancy-pantses potato salad – it's red potatoes, red wine vinegar and cilantro. A toss of salt, a good stir, and you've got a deceptively delicious potato... salad? Hard to say, but let's not get all hung up on that.

The first time Damir made this, I was instantly reminded of Mollie Katzen's recipe for "Very-Much Marinated Potatoes," which is a six-ingredient dynamo. If you don't consider boiling water an ingredient, well then, it's still a five ingredient hit.

This is three ingredients. Three. That's not even a recipe. It's barely a grocery list. How can it translate into something you would want to make over and over? Consider "Damir's Broccoli," which is only four ingredients, and is smack-your-forehead good. 

The hot potatoes soak up the tangy red wine vinegar like a spud sponge, and the fresh cilantro sprigs give a crazy crisp-flavored bite that just works so well with the red potatoes and vinegar. I honestly don't get it. Seriously. How can this be that addictive? 

It is about knowing what you want to taste, and breaking it down to the core elements. Whether by Bosnian background or by budget, Damir did this well in whatever stainless steel mixing bowl he had handy. You can add a drizzle of that great extra-virgin olive oil you've got in the back of the cupboard, you can add some minced fresh garlic, you can add a crack or two of black pepper. But, really, it's about making the potatoes happy – red wine vinegar and cilantro do that simply, and they do it beautifully. 

Potato, potata... salad?

10 medium-sized red potatoes, boiled whole until fork tender and sliced into 1/2" pieces

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 good bunch of cilantro (about 43 cilantro leaf-sets, plucked delicately from their stems)

Salt to taste

Stir everything together, add a bit of pepper if you like, or a couple glugs of good olive oil. Make it yours.

Dressed for summer in lemon and green olive.

Great-grandma Scott's potato salad. © Ryan Schierling 

This is Potato Salad. That's what it says right there on the worn recipe card. It is a simple statement. It begs no competition and it expects none either. So while the name may not proclaim it an epic offering, I am here to tell you it is quite special indeed.

I love this potato salad. As much as I now enjoy many other kinds of potato salad, this was the one of my formative years and is as much a gold standard for me as it is a deeply-held tradition for my family. It is interesting to me how one's early experience with any given food sets the stage and paints the backdrop against which one's future experience is framed. My family's potato salad is a little unique. While it may have a similar texture and consistency to most picnic-style potato salads, it doesn't contain either mustard, pickles, pickle juice or vinegar – some combination of which you typically find flavoring the local deli's offerings.

It's a simple six ingredient recipe that originated with my great-grandmother. I am told that my great-grandfather was not a fan of raw onions, or the breath it left him with afterwards, so my great-grandmother began using green olives instead. There are a few in the family, including my grandma, who do occasionally add some sliced green onions to the mix, but the recipe has remained essentially unchanged for the better part of a century. A delight of salty lemony goodness enveloping wee morsels of cubed potato and eggs.

Ask any family member accustomed to making this potato salad and you will quickly learn that there are certain things you do not deviate from in preparation: the potatoes must be cubed no larger than 1/2" in size, it is preferable that the olives be of the green variety, the lemon juice must be fresh-squeezed (don't use Meyer lemons), and there are absolutely no acceptable substitutes for regular Best Foods / Hellman's mayonnaise (not even the light version). Sorry, there are no measurements for the sauce – you "just have to know" when you've hit the perfect consistency. I am convinced that last instructive is a hallmark of all good family recipes.


Potato Salad

Red* potatoes: (1 medium potato per person) boiled, peeled, cut in small cubes
Eggs: (approx. 1 per person) hard-boiled, peeled, diced small
Green (or black) olives, sliced

Dressing:
Best Foods / Hellman's Real Mayonnaise
Juice of fresh lemons 
Salt to taste

Prepare potatoes and eggs ahead and cool in refrigerator. In a small bowl, stir fresh squeezed lemon juice into the mayonnaise, adding gradually until a thin sauce is achieved. (Depending upon the size of your lemons, estimate about 1-2 lemons per cup of mayonnaise.)  The sauce should be creamy, but pourable, run easily through your fork and have a good, but not overpowering, lemony tang when tasted. Salt well.

According to my grandma, it is best to mix the dressing with the other ingredients close to serving time. When picnicing, these can be stored separately and then mixed when it is time to eat. Check for seasoning again after mixing the dressing with the other ingredients. Chances are those potatoes and eggs will demand a little extra salt.

* Red potatoes are the standard and hold their shape well, but russets are also tasty and an acceptable alternate.

Mustard potato salad, proper.

Simplicity. © Ryan Schierling

There's no fantastic story behind this potato salad, it was simply created for those who are mayonnaise averse. I know, I know, that sounds ridiculous. Who doesn't love mayonnaise? I mean, I spread it on sandwiches like a porcelain-skinned ginger kid slathers on SPF 85 sunblock. I love it.

But mayo isn't for everyone, and bright-yellow mustard-based potato salad doesn't always, errr... cut the mustard either. This salad is light, refreshing and has a nice tang from the dry white wine and a little bite from the whole-grain mustard. The chives, and there are a lot of chives, lend a nice complementary color and a slight, subtle onion flavor without overpowering the sweet, tiny red potatoes. It is a delicious, quick and easy potato salad to make.

Ryan's Mustard Potato Salad

2 lbs. little red "C" potatoes, cut in half and steamed until tender
4 eggs, hard-boiled, sliced
4 tablespoons whole grain mustard
2/3 cup dry white wine
4 tablespoons chives, chopped fine
3 good pinches kosher salt

Wash the wee potatoes well and cut in half. If there are larger potatoes, you can cut them into quarters. Steam the potatoes until they are fork-tender, then drain any excess liquid off and put into a large bowl. Add three hefty pinches of kosher salt, the sliced hard-boiled egg and the chives. Whisk together the whole grain mustard and white wine (we like to use Sauvignon Blanc), then pour the dressing over the potatoes and mix well. Adjust seasoning to taste. 

Cue the potato salad.

Texas potato salad, front and center. © Ryan Schierling

There will always be people who transplant themselves and then wonder why no one accepts them as one of their own. A New Yorker moving to L.A. will always be a New Yorker, and I still haven't met anyone who's actually from Austin.

I live in Texas, by way of Washington state, Virginia, Colorado and, originally, Kansas. There are those that believe you can never be a Texan unless you were born in Texas, damn it all to hell what it says on your driver's license or what your accent sounds like or what you *think* you know about barbecue.

To those Texans, I say, keep your silly insular pride and your Great Republic of Texas talk.

I may not be a Texan by definition, but I know what good barbecue is because I've eaten a truck-load of it, in a lot of different places. I know what good barbecue is because I've eaten some of the finest smoked meat on the planet. I also know what good barbecue is because I've eaten bad barbecue. I know how to make good barbecue, and I know how to make good barbecue sides. Put that in your pit and smoke it.

Cue the potato salad. 

It is a sidekick, but some might call it the sidekick. It is Batman's Robin, Cheech's Chong, Brain's Pinky. I might go so far as to say it is Mr. Roarke's Tattoo.

It's also a staple with a million variations. Eggs or no eggs? Mayo or mustard? Celery or celery seed? Green onions or white or none at all? A perfect candidate for another Foie Gras Hot Dog 5 days, 5 ways.

TGICFS.

CFS w/ mashed potatoes and cream gravy. © Ryan Schierling

According to The Rolling Stones, you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

I always want CFS and eggs over-easy, with a side of hash browns and toast. Always.

We arrived at the Blanco Bowling Club too late for breakfast, and too early to watch the locals do a little nine-pin bowling. But, the kitchen was churning out what looked and smelled like homemade small-town Americana by the plateful so we sat down, got ourselves some iced tea and took a look at the menu.

Call it a hunch, but I knew the chicken-fried steak was going to be good. It had to be. There are many paths to CFS enlightenment in the state of Texas and at least a few of those paths – according to those in the know – end in Blanco, at this well-seasoned bowling alley, cafe and community center that's been around since 1947.

I ordered the "large," which was two hand-breaded cuts of beef, with a side of mashed potatoes, a salad, and homemade bread.

The crust was crispy, with crunchy ridges that yielded nicely to the fork and revealed a tender, cooked-medium cube steak that immediately made me forget all about the over-easy eggs and hash browns I tend to prefer with CFS. Some joints drown their steaks in gravy, hoping to hide flaws and imperfections, but the Blanco Bowling Club Cafe puts their chicken-fried glory on display with just enough cream gravy on the side to swipe forkfuls of beef through. The mashed potatoes were real, the salad was ubiquitous diner iceberg mix and the ranch dressing on the table in a clear squeezy bottle was exactly what I wanted to top it with.

I saved a piece of homemade bread to squeegee any remaining potatoes and gravy mixed with bits of CFS crust shrapnel, leaving my plate spotless for an easy arc straight from the bus bin to the dishwasher. Hey, I do what I can.

And in case you were wondering, Aaron, Chris, Corey and Ross, this one beats my former number one CFS in Wallace, Idaho.

We eat bowling shoes
at hands of lesser artists
A masterpiece, this

Falafel? Eat more burgers.

Getting fresh with a black bean and falafel burger. © Ryan Schierling

Please allow me to explain my mild ambivalence toward the beloved American hamburger. I mean, really... if you take away the meat, doesn't it just become a salad sandwich?

When it comes right down to it, I decidedly prefer the idea of eating "meatless" food to using "fake meat" whenever possible. But I'm not going to eat a salad sandwich. While not entirely opposed to vegetarian products posing as a replacement for meat, I still like to think of even these "replacements" as unique foods unto themselves, instead of realistically expecting them to stand in the stead of the flesh-based stuff. I can count the number of real hamburgers I have eaten in my lifetime on one hand, but I have never been able to honestly think of veggie burgers as hamburgers – it just doesn't seem right.

I have long enjoyed the original Gardenburger™, and the salty homemade vegeburgers of my childhood, but the faux-burger's lack of authenticity disqualifies it from being the food I would choose to photograph at every stop on a cross-country road trip. Here in Austin there are an impressive number of restaurants making their own vegetarian burger patties, and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. Recently, however, I tried P. Terry's veggie burger and it was one of the best I've ever eaten. Perhaps there is hope that this meatless sub-genre of "burgers" will one day achieve respectful credibility.

So, while I've eaten my share of veggie burgers, I have rarely bothered to try making them. There are good easy options on the market and it always seemed to be more trouble than it was worth since I can only eat one and I am usually the only person eating them. When your "burger" is, more or less, a vehicle for lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions... it doesn't really seem to matter as much.

Then this spring, while contemplating how to use some divine Bulgarian feta sitting in the fridge, an idea hit me. It wasn't just about making a pleasing patty substitute, it was about the whole thing, top to bottom, bun and everything in between. A burger that could honestly hold its own and be served to carnivores without shame.... 

Baby's first brisket.

Baby. © Ryan Schierling

When I was eight years old, our family moved from a tiny town in Kansas to a little bit bigger town in Kansas. There would be a new house and a new school, new friends and new adventures. I was riding in the moving truck with my dad, and when he pulled into the cul-de-sac I remember wondering which house was going to be ours, what my new bedroom was going to be like, and how fast we could get my bike out of the back so I could explore the neighborhood – all very important stuff when you're eight.

He pulled the truck to the curb in front of a yellow, split-level house with brown garage doors, right at the shoulder of the court. Coronado Court. That was my new address… I'd gone from E. 8th Street to Coronado Court. It was a lot to take in.

My mom and sister got out of the car behind us, and once the front door was unlocked, I bolted upstairs to see which room I was going to get.

A few minutes later, I heard my mother yell for my dad, and then I heard her crying. I ran from my new room to the kitchen and saw her standing with the refrigerator door open, holding a green bottle with a red ribbon tied around it.

A solitary bottle of champagne in an otherwise empty refrigerator, left by the previous owners of the house, for the new owners of the house.

I didn't completely grasp the significance of this gesture at the age of eight.

Cobbled together.

 Grilled peach cobbler. © Ryan Schierling

"Let's end this week of grilling with dessert! It's peach season! I have an idea!"

We should be able to cook nearly anything on the grill, or over a campfire, that we can cook or bake in a modern kitchen, right? Or, so it goes in theory. My idea was to assemble the individual components of a peach cobbler – preparing as many as possible on the grill – and devour the collective deliciousness.

So, we decided to go for it – a kinda sorta deconstructed/reconstructed peach cobbler. This is how the grilling attempt played out for each element:

PEACHES:  Yes! Grill those peaches. They are delicious! But do be sure to first clean the grill grates very very well … can't have them tasting like the steak you just threw down. As they become soft, the fruit begins to slip from the skins. A bit of charring/caramelization is quite a nice touch on a peach, particularly when paired with something sweet.

COBBLER:  This is basically a sweet biscuit dough which is typically baked on top of the fruit. So, hey, how about baking some sweet shortcake instead? I like to bake biscuits on a stone in the oven, however, we just happen to have an unglazed quarry tile that is the perfect size for the grill. We gave it an optimistic go. Results? Let's just say "this might require a little more practice." They puffed-up perfectly, but they didn't seem to want to finish baking. Every time we took the lid off the grill the temperature plummeted, which I suspect contributed to their lack of cooperation in baking evenly. They're terribly picky about their ambient temperature needs…. so, it's absolutely possible, but maybe not ideal – especially when trying to cook multiple items.

CINNAMON SAUCE:  Now, what about that syrupy cinnamon sauce? Could we cook it over the coals too? Um… probably possible, but a little tricky with all that sugar going on. I actually did this on the stove top and then took it to the grill to reheat. The good news is that it heated right up to a hot bubbling little saucepan of goodness, thus explaining my "probably possible." Personally, I'll stick to the burner in my kitchen and make it a day ahead if necessary. It does beautifully in the refrigerator for a few days and is tasty served either hot or cooled.

ICE CREAM:  I am not a magician. The grill won't help at all here.

Warm ripe Texas peaches with a hint of caramel char, rich and tender shortcake, a scoop of cool vanilla ice cream… these are all the big visible things about a cobbler. But I think the element that really makes it "cobbler" is that aromatic cinnamon liquid it swims in. My Grandma Munroe has a sauce recipe that I absolutely adore; one she always serves with her steamed pudding during the holidays. It seemed like the perfect salty-sweet sauce to appropriate for these grilled peaches.

Ćevapi accoutrements.

Cevap, with tomato jam and minted yogurt. © Ryan Schierling

So, go get yourself some lepinja, or somun, find a jar of ajvar and a little bit of kajmak. Now, when you're forming the ćevaps...

Wait, where did everybody go?

Alright. Okay. Despite the hate mail I'll inevitably get from the Balkan countries, I'll Old Glory the hell out of this one. But I'm not going to change the ćevapi recipe... just the accoutrements. Fair enough?

Ćevap. Ćevapi. Ćevapčići.

It's as American as hamburgers, except replace American with Bosnian, and replace hamburgers with ćevaps. This grilled minced meat, like little skinless sausage bits, like little kebab nuggets, is a tiny football-shaped hot deliciousness, and your mouth is the wipe-open wide-receiver. Wait, do they care at all about American football in Bosnia? 

(Sigh.) 

I think I just lost the other half of the room.

I was introduced to ćevaps by our Bosnian neighbor Damir, who could be found on just about any evening, rain or shine, with a fired-up Weber Smoky Joe and some sort of meat happily sizzling away. Ćevaps, being the official national dish of Bosnia, were one of his home-away-from-home hits.

Being a national favorite, I know there are countless regional variations and preparations. Damir usually served his on whatever hearty bread he picked up at the store, sometimes with ajvar, sometimes not. Sometimes with fresh onions, sweated under the ćevaps that were tented in foil after they came off the grill, sometimes not. I've read that sour cream or cottage cheese are not unusual to find instead of the Balkan clotted cream.

Of course, I had to try making my own ćevapčićis, with a little personal twist. I used flatbreads heated on the grill, the standard ćevap recipe as I understood it from Damir, topped with a warm tomato jam instead of ajvar, and minted yogurt subbing for the kajmak. Were they traditional? Absolutely not. Were they delicious? Most definitely. 

These ćevaps are a spicy, juicy little beef and lamb nibble, and a half savory, half sweet spread like homemade tomato jam is a perfect foil to the richness of the football-shaped morsels. The minted yogurt, mixed with the juice of a lemon to loosen it up and give it a bit more pucker, provides a creamy, fresh zip to the whole package. 

I tend to make mine a little bigger than is customary for ćevapi, and two are usually the perfect portion in each warm flatbread. Spread a little tomato jam, drop a few spoonfuls of yogurt, and damn... Mami ti krajnike ispitam!

Wait, did I say that wrong? 

(Sigh.)

Here's the recipe anyway.

This doesn't taste like a lake.

Cedar-planked Alaskan King salmon, ready for some heat. © Ryan Schierling

The first time I ate salmon was at the Four Seasons Hotel. It was a work-related event as part of my first full-time job out of college – a banquet in a swanky little event room complete with requisite white table linens. The choices for dinner were the standard beef, chicken and fish options, and salmon was the featured fish… so that's what I chose. At the time it seemed the safest selection to avoid drawing attention to myself as an extremely inexperienced carnivore.

My first impression of salmon? It tasted like a lake.

It was 'good' but it took me right back to summer camp and the days I spent swimming in the lake as an adolescent.

About a year went by before I tried salmon again. This time it was at the home of a neighbor. I clearly remember that it was a whole fillet, cooked on a gas grill. I think it was essentially steamed. I recall it being unwrapped from a shroud of aluminum foil and then experiencing the luscious aroma of lemon and dill wafting a delicious "hello" in my direction.

It was a revelation – and it didn't taste like a lake at all. So began my love affair with salmon...

Pictured above is robust fillet of wild-caught Alaskan King salmon prepared for the indirect heat grill with salt and pepper, fresh dill and lemon slices. A thin, untreated cedar shake that has been thoroughly soaked in salted water overnight does duty here as an economical plank.

Finished with a squeeze of lemon and served with a simple wild rice pilaf, we're talking about a meal with classic Pacific Northwest credentials.

Rustic pizza, kissed by fire.

Grilled pizza Margherita. © Ryan Schierling

You're craving pizza on a hot day, but the idea of cranking your oven up to tip-top temperature in the middle of the summer is simply insane. Grilled pizza to the rescue! I'm not talking about opening a box of frozen pizza and tossing it on the grill, here – I suppose that would work, but we can do far better than that. If you're up for a little tactile pleasure and a smoky hot mess of rustic and delicious, then have I got a pizza plan for you!

Grilled pizza certainly isn't an original idea – it is basically bread over fire, and flat breads have been cooked over open flame in some form or other since the beginning of time. Admittedly, though, on my first attempt it felt like a pretty bold move to put the dough directly on the grill grate. Even Ryan was a little quizzical at the notion.

I've baked pizza from scratch for years, sliding pies large and small onto a great big baking stone that had a permanent address in the oven. So, not using a pan isn't exactly ground-breaking for me. I had heard of baking pizzas on the grill, but it had only been in the context of throwing one's pizza stone on a very large grill and going from there as usual. I decided that smaller personal-sized pizzas would work more easily on our 22" Weber and figured it was pretty likely that just stretching it across the grate would do just fine, so long as the dough had enough oil on the surface. I was excited when it worked out so well.

Pizza dough might seem complicated, but it really isn't. Sure, you could do something more specialized like make sourdough pizza using your own starter, or make your dough the night before and give it a super-slow rise in the fridge, but the reality is that if you have an hour to prep your toppings and cook up a little sauce, you have plenty of time to make a perfectly delicious pizza from scratch.