cucmber salad with yogurt dressing

• 2 cucumbers
• 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• fresh parsley, chopped
• coarse salt

Dice the cucumbers into bite sized pieces. Stir the lemon juice into the yogurt until well blended. Pour dressing over cucumbers, add parsley and toss to coat. Season to taste with salt.

The dish: Growing up in suburbia has its advantages: good schools, big houses and bigger yards. The one main drawback is the mid-teen realization that there's nothing to do. Like many other kids in my town, I spent countless hours at the Monroe Diner nursing my chocolate milk and gravy fries for as long as I could before the waitresses would kick us out or it would be curfew time. On any given weekend night 2/3 of the school would be piled into booths, hanging out and complaining that there was nothing to do. For all of the whining I did at the time I look back fondly on those years and realize that there's not much to do anywhere if you take that attitude. All those hours spent at the "teenage wasteland" that was the diner helped formed friendships that are still active to this day and it also opened my eyes to Greek cuisine. Pairing cucumber and yogurt together is a no-brainer as it is the basis for gyro sauce (yeah, I'm not even gonna try to spell it for real- too many consonants). John Lennon said that "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" but for kids growing up in suburbia life is frequently what happens while you're complaining that there's nothing to do.

grilled spam and pineapple sandwich

• spam, sliced
• cored pineapple slices
• fresh baby spinach
• Dijon mustard
• hamburger bun

Grill spam and pineapple on bbq until just slightly charred. Assemble sandwich as follows (from bottom to top); bun, spinach, pineapple, spam, mustard, bun.

The dish: Spam was born as the marketing effort to revive sales of Hormel's spiced ham. The name was the result of a contest where the lucky winner, the brother of a Hormel executive (fix anyone?), won $100 for tagging the iconic canned meat. Many years later, there is no spot on the earth that consumes more Spam than Hawaii, whose citizens each eat in excess of 15 tins per year of the edible junk mail. First introduced by soldiers during World War II, Spam quickly became a staple of the native diet. The 50th state is pretty far out there and needs to import pretty much everything, so the canned meat that travels well is an obvious choice for dinner on the island. Spam is so prevalent that Hawaiian McDonald's and Burger Kings offer it on their menus. My first introduction to Spam came when I moved into a bachelor pad apartment with regular red room reader Rebecca's (up yours Judy Bussman- don't worry, your not supposed to get it) now husband, Kevin. A group of us sat and watched reluctantly as Kevin grilled us up a snack. I'm pretty open minded, but Spam just has such a connotation to it, but damned if it wasn't delicious. This sandwich is a nod to Kevin's genius grilling and the folks that call Spam their "Hawaiian steak".

chicken salad

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 large apple, cored and diced
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
• unseasoned sliced almonds
• adobo
• cumin
• mayonnaise
• Dijon mustard

Season chicken with adobo, cook until done, then chop into small pieces. In large bowl combine cooled chicken, apple, and celery with about two tablespoons each of mayonnaise and mustard. Season with a couple of shakes of cumin and 1 or 2 shakes of adobo. If salad appears too dry, add equal amounts of mayo and mustard until desired consistency is reached. Serve on your favorite bread with fresh greens or on top of a fresh salad.

The dish: Although they're stories for a different time, there were two separate weeks of my life where I lived on nothing but store bought chicken salad. Eat one thing for a week straight and you'll be amazed at how much of an expert you become on that dish. While tasty, I always found the bought stuff to be a little lacking in flavor and usually dripping with too much mayonnaise. I'm pretty sure I'm past the point of eating any one thing straight for a week, but I don't mind making a big batch of this as the unique flavors can be enjoyed for a while. Like tuna the longer this sits the better it becomes.