If your idea of potato salad is limited to the typical mayonnaise based recipes, it’s time to think again and experiment with farm fresh potatoes, new mix-ins, and alternate dressings.
This potato and egg salad with a vinaigrette is made creamy by the mixing of the eggs and dressing. A few scallions add flavor and color.
The great American writer Laurie Colwin
She had a favorite for this time of year. “If you can find them, the tiny potatoes of early autumn are delicious. They are the size of quail eggs and are wonderful steamed and eaten with a French olive oil, salt, pepper and a drop of lemon juice.”
Colwin also gave good advice on selecting potatoes for salads. She found that waxy potatoes like our popular red skinned varieties don’t absorb as much dressing and are best when you want a salad, “delicately coated.” And that mealier potatoes, like a russet, soak up dressing for a creamier result.
You'll find the recipe for this Summer Corn and Potato Salad in one of our posts from 2008. I still make it and we still love it.
Vinaigrette Potato Salads
Thinking vinaigrette rather than mayonnaise is very traditional. In Fannie Merritt Farmer's
One version is great for apple season – Potato and Celery Salad. She wrote, “To two cups boiled potatoes cut in one-half inch cubes add one-half cup finely cut celery and a medium-sized apple, pared, cut in eighths, then eighths cut in thin slices. Marinate with French Dressing. Arrange in a mound and garnish with celery tip and sections of bright red apple.” Her version of “French Dressing” was what we call vinaigrette: a mix of olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
Family Recipe
The potato and egg salad you see at the top was my father-in-law's recipe. Ed and I enjoy this as a quick meal some evenings. I use two pounds of red potatoes as the base. Rather than peel the potatoes, I scrub them, remove any eyes or bad spots, slice into wedges, and cook them in a steamer
Other additions to a salad like this might be capers, grated carrots, parsley, dill, or a bit of dry mustard. As with so many salads, I use what I have on hand when I begin to make it and change it up often enough to keep it fresh among the routine meals.
What's on your Food Lover's shopping list?
Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino (Adapted for the web from one of her Fresh & Local newspaper columns)
Photos: ©2008- 2015 Penny Cherubino
magazine, 
. And, while this is currently out of print, you can buy used or even a few treasured new copies on 
has been getting rave reviews.
from here to support this site! Here are three of our favorite wine books.
on both my bedside table in audiobook form and beside my reading chair with the Boston Public Library's (BPL) hardcover edition.
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by Gabrielle Redner was a pleasure to have had around during the summer farmers' market season. And, as the days grow colder, I'm thrilled to have this book to remind me of the warm September days we have spent on Martha's Vineyard. 
and 
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by Boston Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert was a hit with me and with many of my dog loving friends. Matthew was not a dog person until his husband convinced him that they needed a dog in their life. And, he was not much of a people person until he became part of the community at a dog park. The book is a tale of the transition and what he describes as, “… the strange, wonderful, neurotic, and eccentric dog people who gather daily at Amory Park, overlooking Boston.”
by Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a most enjoyable travelogue of the author’s four month trip across this country with his Labrador Retriever. 
by science historian Laurel Braitman. 
(most appropriate for this time of year), next the 
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