It's Christmas dinner, and I'm probably around 8 years old. We're all at my Grandparents house, and Christmas Dinner/Thanksgiving Dinner is like my Grandma's Super Bowl. Every year she tries something new, just to spice it up for the rest of the family.

This year it's an experiment with the salad, straight from the Betty Crocker cookbook (I think). You have to understand that my Grandmother was the librarian at Thomas Payne Elementary in Urbana, and about the sweetest... most naive woman ever. So it didn't occur to her that this would be a bad idea:



Me and my 28 year old Uncle are sitting at the table when Grandma brings them out.


Well, my uncle and I have about the same maturity level... and there was no way this was going to go well. And when my grandmother made her version, rather than whipped cream she used a yogurt/sour cream dressing that dribbled down the banana. My Uncle and I are howling. And it's not long before the rest of the table is howling. Everyone except grandma. She turns bright red, and grabs all the salads and throws them away. I don't think she was angry... just really embarrassed.

To this day, she makes the mistake of coming to the table and rhetorically asking if she's forgotten anything. This usually gets a, "Candle Salad" response, by either me or the Uncle.