Day after July 4, and the best part is eating the left over potato salad.  Yesterday in the heat of the early afternoon, I made my Southern-style potato salad (recipe below) to take to a party that at the last minute, we decided not to go to.  Instead, my husband took my son to watch the fireworks and I took my daughter and her friend to the movies. I ate a small bowl of the potato salad, it was room temperature; the potatoes were still slightly warm. I could taste the potency of the grainy mustard and the stone crunchiness of the Celtic sea salt.  I worried maybe I was heavy handed with the salt and pepper.  I liked the kick the hot sauce gave to the softness of the oil and tahini.  By this morning, the flavors and textures had worked their way together, even as each individual ingredient stood in its own glory. Clean celery crunch, creamy earthy olive sesame blend , the latter reminded me of a cool stone floor of a Mediterranean hotel I once stayed in.  Or was that the influence from the girl movie we saw last night, Monte Carlo. The kick of the hot sauce had mellowed just showing enough of its fire to know she was there. The fresh parsley, Italian of course, tarragon and dill work as a trio of greenness to turn this family recipe upside down.

I’ve included the recipe here for all to enjoy, though I highly suggest you get my new book, Vegan Family Meals.  In the recipe’s head note, you can read my thoughts about how every region of the States as well as within every family; everyone thinks they have the best Potato Salad recipe.  Well, maybe they do.  But so do I!

PACIFIC NORTHWEST TRAVELOGUE
Also, this morning, a short interview I had with Grant Butler, food writer for The Oregonian went to print. Turns out Grant is a fellow vegan. He wrote a fun and informational piece about eating well when traveling by car.  This reminded me I had yet to document my cookbook tour.  I came back from the tour still exhilarated yet somewhat exhausted and had to immediately put my restaurateur hat on and take care of business.  So here I go with the highlights of the tour:
In PORTLAND, my first act was attending a delicious potluck of the Northwest Vegetarians. They were a lovely bunch of people and this was a perfect opening for the week to come. Next morning at the crack of dawn to appear live on AM-NW.  I was picked up by the dynamic Tselani who not only drove me around but had prepared my recipes so that I was able to look really good live on TV showing off my Lasagna Rolls and Edamame Hummus.  My second night in Seattle, I went to a thirty-year-old independent bookshop, Annie Bloom and talked about my process of writing as well as signed copies of my book.
Tuesday, I headed down to SAN FRANCISCO, where I hung out in the swanky lobby of the Villa Florence in Union Square waiting for the husband to join me. We did our usual running around a city finding the groovy healthy places to eat. Not so hard in San Fran. proper, though, they really would welcome a Real FoodDaily.

At night, I was a guest speaker at 18 Reasons.  What a fun and pleasurable evening with lots of great folks from Karen Solomon who was my official interviewer to Rosie and company who made a wonderful meal from my cookbook and were intuitive enough since it was 95º that day to chill the Zucchini Soup.  Perfecto!  And I got to meet the lovely Naomi Starkman who had written a piece on me for Civil Eats a few weeks earlier.  Lots of Twitter meet-ups have taken place since and sealed the deal for future friendships.

Next stop, Bookshop SANTA CRUZ.  My hubby’s sister and brother live here, so all the family and extended members and neighbors came out to create a lively evening.  My 8-year-old son, stood up at the podium with me and when it came time for questions and answers, Walker lobbied in this philosophical question, “Mom, what are the ingredients for nothing and how would you cook that?”

There was a nothing’ for the answer!

Thanks to the three-team members at the bookshop who made dishes from the recipes from my book: Potato Salad, (re-printed below,) Jicami Carrot Slaw and mini Nutty Raspberry Muffins.  Perfectly made, thank-you.
On my last day, I arrived in SEATTLE where my two friends Bruce and Alan escorted me from venue to venue.  I spent the afternoon with the gals of Bon Vivant.  Myra and company where fantastic: chattering, Tweeting, photographing, laughing, eating and networking.  I’d like to go to an event like this every week.  We made BLT Tartines from my book.  I had brought the tempeh bacon with me because I knew how special it was.  We washed the almond jam thumbprint cookies down with Seattle’s own Dry Soda.  What a perfect end to an exciting few days of promotion for Vegan Family Meals.

Click here to download a copy of Ann’s Southern-styled Potato Salad with Tarragon Mustard Dressing!