In the kettle are several eggs boiling along with a dozen potatoes, still with their skins on. In the pan before me sizzling a fryer freshly dipped in batter.. There is something about preparing food for a picnic, something that allows the mind to wander over other happy occassions. As I pull the potatoes now softened from the boiling water and begin to loosen their jackets, my mind wanders to a day in late spring when my Mom taught me how to make potato salad for the first time. I remember how precise and beautiful her salad looked, and how scrumptious it always tasted. Over the years I have semi-perfected her manner of "oh, that looks about right" cooking, but her potato salad I have never yet rivaled. Already on the sideboard are some chopped up onion, both red and white, and a cup full of diced pickles both sweet and pepper dill, which will be added along with just a dash of the dill pickle brine into the salad dressing. Cubing already boiled potatos is an interesting chore as they are floury and already breaking apart. I absolutely despise boiled eggs! The nasty things. They roll around and slide out of your fingers at the least provocation. Trying to make them even is just not going to happen for me. I finally get some chopped up into bits instead of just mashed. At long last, while the chicken finishes its frying in the deep pot of smoking oil, I am ready to assemble my potato salad. Into the bowl go the 12 potatos, 5 boiled eggs, the onion and pickle bits. This is the easy part! Then to mix the dressing! A bit of prepared mustard, hmmm is that a 'Moms' about right? No? Perhaps a bit more. Now for the mayonnaise, One, two three scoops, mix, hmmmm.. the color is not quite what it should be, another scoop of mayo. Now it is too light so let's add a bit more mustard. Stir... pretty close. A taste test perhaps? Yeah! That is not too bad, now for a bit of pickle brine and some salt and pepper. AAAAAAAAAAAAAgh! There is black smoke erupting from my deep fryer! The chicken is ruined!!! Tears flood my eyes as I watch all mornings work go up in smoke. As I run for the fire extinguisher, (some philosopher once said that dinner is finished when the smoke alarm goes off..ohh yeah .. that was my mother :S) I knock the big glass mixing bowl with all the potato salad fixings onto the floor! Time for one frantic phone call! 'Hello Crescent? I will be a bit late to the picnic, I have to stop at KFC on the way.'