It Depends On Who's Doing It

As I continue to swim my way through Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (The self-deceptions begin!  The malicious gossip abounds!), the back cover provides a clue to why the book is such a joyful read.

In praise of the translators, Caryl Emerson, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University, says, "At last, a version of Tolstoy's great novel that is neither musty, nor overly modernized, nor primly recast as a Victorian landscape."

So it all depends on the translation, does it?

I wonder what the two translators could do with a Hawthorne novel.  Try a little Hawthorne for yourself and maybe you'll agree that his overwrought English is nearly as difficult as Russian.   

In the Bye-Bye Nesquik kitchen, we have a frequent Sunday dinner guest, The Boyfriend.  Maybe his appearance was supposed to send me into paroxysms of worry.  How shall I impress our guest? 

Or maybe I decided to let him worry about impressing me.  (And I am impressed.)

At any rate, I didn't over-trouble myself, and proceeded with the humble-but-yummy dish that was on the menu before we knew he was coming.

"So what did your girlfriend's mom feed you?" his friends asked once the ordeal was over. 

"Egg Salad Tacos," he told them.

Which they found terribly funny.  The next time he came over, they wished him well.  "Enjoy your tuna tacos," they told him.

Humph!  I'll bet if Rachael Ray trotted out the hard-boiled eggs and the taco shells and the sharp cheddar (the secret to its yumminess) on her show, Egg Salad Tacos would be the hippest food of the week.  People would make their own spin-off tacos.   You'd see special salsas for it on Pinterest.

It all depends on the source, doesn't it?

I got the recipe from Southern Living.  Does that redeem me?


MEXICAN EGG SALAD TACOS

4 large hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1/4 cup (1 oz.) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 TB chopped green onion
2 TB lite Miracle Whip
2 TB salsa
1 TB lite sour cream
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
6 taco shells
Lettuce leaves
3/4 cup (3 oz.) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Additional salsa

--Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl; set aside.
--Combine Miracle Whip and next 4 ingredients; fold into egg mixture.
--Line taco shells with lettuce.  Spoon egg salad evenly into taco shells. Sprinkle 2 TB cheese on each taco.  Serve with salsa.  YIELD: 6 servings, 200 cals each, but I can't confine myself to just one taco. 

Tonight, we fed The Boyfriend  Maple Teriyaki Salmon Fillets.  It was the most eager eating I've ever seen from him.  Take that, oh hipster friends!