The Classics

Mom’s 4-Bean Salad

that now contains only 3 beans ☺

SOUND BITE

Growing up, I had a deep-seated aversion to my mom’s (or any) bean salad. Now that I’m all grown up, I love it! That said, Mom’s recipe used four types of beans, including the very scary lima bean, which had no business being served to children. My modified (and slightly modernized) version of Alfreda’s salad is lima-less (phew!) but still delicious.

My Childhood Food Shenanigans

I grew up in a small house with a big family—five sisters, plus Mom and Dad. Our dining table was the heart of the home, filled with mouthwatering meals, lots of memories and occasionally, some creative problem-solving.

You see, my mom was a great cook, but not everything she made was kid-approved. Case in point: Polish Christmas Eve specialties like prune soup and sauerkraut pancakes. Yeah. Not exactly a 10-year-old’s dream meal.

But Janet—my partner in crime and sister closest to my age—had a brilliant plan. The dining table had a drawer on one side, and we’d fight for a seat next to it. 

Why? Because if we didn’t like something on our plates, we’d just… slide it right into the drawer and hope for the best. Yes, even the prune soup. Did Mom know? Of course she knew! Moms always know.

And the food shenanigans didn’t stop there. Janet and I whipped up a whole pot of homemade fudge—with two cups of sugar—and washed it down with an entire jug of grape Kool-Aid—another cup of sugar. 

Did we get sick? No. Did we fall into a sugar coma? Shockingly, no. We just ran around like maniacs and burned it all off. I wish I could say we only did this once. But I’d be lying.

My ultimate kitchen tale is a big cooking fail! The time I baked-up a beautiful, homemade chocolate-swirl cheesecake for Christmas dessert.

Cheesecake takes work.  Mixing, baking, cooling. My teenage impatience forced me to speed things up by putting the cheesecake onto the front porch to chill since it was winter. 

Let’s just say, the local squirrels ate very well that day and all I could salvage was one little sliver with two paw-prints in it.

And yet, despite all of that, I turned out to be a cookbook author. Life can be funny like that.