Mom & Dad's potato salad -- made the evening before the barbeque with chopped celery and green peppers (not chives), topped with round slices of hard-boiled eggs and sprinkles of paprika. Perfect with anything off the grill.

And Grandma's dill pickles -- she grew everything to make them in her garden, including the dill, the scent of which always reminds me of summer evenings. No garlic in them at all. She gave each of her children a five gallon glass jar of them each year.

I still make the potato salad, never tried the pickles.

If you really want to add an interesting crunch to your salad, do what my mom would do: add fresh, diced red delicious apples and bits of sweet pickles. My mouth is watering at the memory!

makes the best potato salad in the world. It is in the classic style, unapologetic, never too juicy, and as a twist, she chops in a few black olives. My potato salad is pretty good, but somehow it never quite hits the spot like Dottie's (does she use more eggs? different brand of mayo? less pepper? I'm baffled). If you're an Oregonian, which I am, another mouth-watering option is to make a standard dill-pickle infused potato salad, then add a pound (and no less) of Dungeness crab. Oh, yummy.

Thanks, Garrison. Happy Fourth to you.

that no right thinking person adds pimento, ever, to potato salad. Only companies, faceless agri-business conglomerates, add pimento, because they think the yellow glop spoken of so eloquently here needs color. Paprika is really the only allowable colorant.

And check the expiration date on that take out stuff. Some is good for more than a month! Month-old potato salad-yummy.

I had an urge to make homemade potato salad for the holiday, thanks for explaining why, Garrison!

When you boil the potatoes, boil them in their jackets. Makes a huge difference in flavor down the line.

Yes, DILL. Potatoes have never had a better friend.

I so agree!!! Every year we have a barbecue. I've stopped asking guests to bring a dish, as they invariably bring something barely edible picked up from the grocery deli on the way over, the worst offender being the mushy, overly-sweet, tubbed excuse for potato salad. Sure, they still bring things, but I always make sure there is plenty of homemade potato salad! Thanks, Mr. Keillor. This needed to be said out loud.

Also, I think that the potatoes need to be cooked more rather than less. Let the crunch come from the celery and sweet relish. And please, for the love of God, use *real* mayo, not the low-fat, no-fat, canola crap.

For my sister's bridal shower a few years ago we served the following:

Fried Chicken

Potato Salad

Biscuits

Watermelon

Corn on the cob

Green salad

Caprese salad

and Pie for desert

Except for the chicken (and we'll cut that bridesmaid some slack because fried chicken for sixty is no easy trick and she got it at a very good place) everything was made with our own little hands. We bought most of the produce at farm stands. The bridesman (we're all sorts of nontraditional) who made the pies is known for them.

People went BANANAS. They still talk about the food at that party. It was just simple somewhat fattening food prepared with care. Most of them hadn't had it in years.

(And for the record: The type and peel-state of our potatoes varies, but the key is marinating them in vinaigrette overnight and mixing up the salad with very little mayo.)

But Jefferson would have had Sally Hemmings make the salad.

I don't understand folks like my neighbour who won't give her kids any of the cookies and cakes I love to make because they're apparently "bad" for them, but thinks nothing of microwave dinners. Go figure. I grew up making all sorts of German foods and goodies with my mom and its' not only a lovely way to remember those wonderful times, but to also pass them on to my daughter.

If you're going to eat, it may as well taste like something and be fresh, especially if it's an occasional treat.

Life is short, enjoy the good stuff and make it yourself.

Where's the recipe?

When I make potato salad, I keep the skins on the potatoes ... very nutritious AND tasty.

Same when I make them 'smashed'.

Try it!

Boil potatoes in the skin, peel and dice with hard boiled eggs, mix with celery, green onions, mayo (Hellman's, nothing sweet), a bit of oil, fresh lemons, salt and pepper. Sour creme optional.

YUM!

My people use mustard, no chives allowed.

Use Idaho roasting potatos, like you'd normally use for baking. Boil them with the skin on, let them cook all the way through. Remove from water, let cool until you can handle them, then peel them. Refrigerate until very cold or overnight. Dice the peeled potatos. Dice celery and green pepper into relish-size bits. Hard boil eggs, cool, slice a few into rounds and dice a few. Mix the potatos, diced eggs, celery and green pepper bits with Hellmann's Sandwich Spread (Hellmeann's mayo with some very good pickle relish added). Coat everything thoroughly, but is should be quite solid, not mushy like store-bought garbage. Black pepper and salt to taste (go easy, not much of either needed). Place into a large bowl, top with hard-boiled egg rounds and sprinkle all over with paprika. Refrigerate and chill thoroughly before serving.

Perfect with any kind of picnic or barbeque food, great with a sandwich too. Yum!!!!

Your homespun routine doesn't work for me. You have argued that Bush and Cheney and their henchmen should not be investigated and, in necessary, prosecuted for torture. TORTURE Keillor!!! TORTURE!!! A heinous and unforgivable crime and sin against mankind. Fuck you Keillor! Shut the fuck up you torture apologist!!!!

And what a contemptible lot you are-those of you who are willing to overlook the crime of torture and the torturers and their apologists-as long as you are entertained-hey what the hell-we're all good Americans here-Richt? We are special-not like those awful terrorists who chop off people's heads.

Hmmmmmmm potato sald-right on Mr Keillor-you are soooooo entertaining.