Goulash and Pea Salad

I have always enjoyed my mom’s cooking.  I’m sure it was a blessing to my mom that I was never a picky eater, but that is not to say that I would not have been able to tell if her food was bad.  She was a good cook because she learned from her mother who was also a good cook and most likely so on.  I don’t remember much about my great grandmother’s cooking.  Chances are she was also proficient in the culinary arts, but I was too young to appreciate her work before she passed.  She was really nice to me, though, and I think that’s an important trait cooks need to have.  I always say people like my cooking because my extra ingredient is love.

My favorite thing that my mom used to cook for me as a kid was what she called goulash.  I always thought it was a funny name that she called it.  I used to laugh when we’d say it like it was our own personal joke.  As it turns out it is an actual dish.  Wikipedia says it’s Hungarian or something like that.  It’s basically a kind of stew.  Noodles and meat mostly.  But it was always a treat when she made it.

Along with the main course was the side dish of pea salad.  That one I actually couldn’t describe to you properly because I don’t actually know what she puts in it.  I know there are peas.  Sometimes eggs I think and the white glue that holds it all tougher, I’m guessing mayonnaise.  All I know is that it tastes so good I could eat a bucket of it by myself and never need to know what it was.  Maybe it’s ranch, though.

Ok, now I need to call my mom.  I’m going to have to know so I can make it myself.