The Best Potato Salad Ever!

We both were part of a small church of about thirty believers, a casual and intimate group. We usually met in the pastor's living room or in a nearby park. Fellowship often took the form of hikes into the San Gabriels. One of these was an overnight backpack to Switzer's Camp...

We were inexperienced and we lacked the money necessary to acquire for ourselves state-of-the-art ultralight gear for use in backpacks. So we did the best we could.The idea was to be well supplied and to have plenty to share. We must have had considerably more than eighty pounds of stuff by the time we were finished...

Stoneware dishes. Cutlery. Fifteen pounds of barbecued and fried chicken. Two dozen deviled eggs. Eight dozen freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Marshmallows. A gallon of Dr Pepper. A dozen carefully packed raw eggs for making breakfast. A full box of instant oatmeal. Six or seven pounds of trail mix. Several bags of candy. Homemade brownies. A couple loaves of bread. Maple syrup. Tabasco Sauce. Bibles, notebooks, flashlights, a tent, a harmonica(she mercifully decided not to take her guitar)...and the potato salad. Ten pounds of it...

We prayed blessings on it, and the people it would be shared with, as we chopped, sliced, and mixed it. We worked late into the night, in semi-darkness so as not to disturb her sister and mom, both sleeping in adjacent rooms. We sampled our finished product and agreed that something crucial was missing...paprika. It took deep foraging in the nethermost regions of the kitchen spice drawer, but we were successful...Having graced the potato salad with this finishing touch, we again sampled it and tasted the Best Potato Salad Ever. Immensely satisfied with our culinary masterpiece, we packed it and collapsed into bed for the remaining three or four hours we had to sleep. And spent at least one of those hours whispering puns and stifling laughter in the dark.

If the trail had been predominantly uphill, we would never have made it. But God put Switzer's Camp in a secluded, sugar pine and live oak shaded valley with an icy stream that danced, splashed, and chuckled gently between scattered stones...We took a lot of good natured teasing about our less-than-expert approach to backpacking. But when lunchtime came, we shared our bounty with them. People were all too eager to share our 'burdens.' Who would want freezedried lasagna and dehydrated soup when a sumptuous repast is spread before them? They were very appreciative. They didn't tease us any more. And our packs would be much lighter on the next day's uphill, homebound trek. But they'll never ever know our secret...

The cruelly honest light of day revealed what we aspiring backcountry gourmet chefs could never have known about the Best Potato Salad Ever, working, as we did, in the dark...Our coup de grace paprika had...er...legs. We rationalzed. Many cultures consider insects to be delicacies...It's protein...good for you. They're tiny, not at all noticeable, really. It was no use. Neither of us could manage even the tiniest bite, burdened as we were with knowledge. So, without further elaboration or words of warning, we put almost ten pounds of the Best(arthropodladen) Potato Salad Ever out for general pig-out purposes. It disappeared in record time. We won great acclaim...but theyll never know why neither one of us could receive all this kudos with a straight face. never!!!!!