A Picnic Favorite: David's Wife's Coleslaw

We spent this last weekend with friends in East Tawas, part of our Annual Fleeing From The Woodward Dream Cruise. I know there are plenty of people who love the Dream Cruise (about a million and a half of them, according to www.woodwarddreamcruise.com), and I can certainly agree in theory with taking a couple of days to celebrate the automobile, which is the foundation of the economy in southeast Michigan.

Most of the cities along the Woodward corridor have related events, fairs, festivals, concerts, etc., and local media talk about little else in the weeks leading up to the Cruise, so by the time the actual event rolls around we’re pretty well ready to be done with it. Staying home means that we can’t leave the house all weekend except on foot, and if we need to venture out we can assume it’ll take several hours to get anywhere – say, the grocery store down the street. Once we get there we’re unlikely to be able to park, assuming that the owner of the parking lot hasn’t shut down their business and rented out the lot to Cruisers all weekend. We don’t have air conditioning in our house, so if we need to keep the windows open to keep from suffocating, we’re also stuck with the accumulated gas fumes and noise from 30,000 extra vehicles driving past our house. (In our defense, the Dream Cruise was NOT this big a deal when we bought our house.)

All of this means that we’re happy to escape to East Tawas for a weekend with our college friends. This year we were a little more disorganized than usual heading out the door, so I left without my usual folder of recipes for feeding a crowd. As my husband has pointed out many times in the past, I’m a slavish follower of recipes – I don’t improvise, I don’t substitute, and I certainly don’t “wing it.” And yet I keep getting into these situations where I have to work outside of my cooking comfort zone. Here’s my latest variation on David’s Wife’s Coleslaw, a perennial favorite at David’s company lunches since it doesn’t include mayonnaise and the leftovers keep forever:

David’s Wife’s Coleslaw

For each head of green cabbage:

1-2 yellow onions, sliced very thinly

1 cup cider vinegar

1 1/2 tsp celery seed

1 tsp dry mustard

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

Salt and pepper

½- ¾ cup olive oil

Slice or shred the cabbage as thinly as you like and toss with the onion, then sprinkle with the 14 cup of sugar and toss again.

Heat the vinegar in the microwave until it’s hot but not boiling. Add the dry mustard, celery seed, the 2 tablespoons of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, and as much pepper as you like. Whisk this together, pour it over the cabbage, and toss. Pour the olive oil over the top and toss it again.

Give the cabbage a couple of minutes to get a little wilty from the hot vinegar, then taste it and adjust the seasonings as needed. If I’m adding more celery seed or mustard I’ll usually heat up a little more vinegar and whisk them in rather than putting the spices directly onto the cabbage, so I don’t end up with clumps of seasoning.

This is best if it sits for an hour or so before serving. It’s great the next day (and the next, and the next), and I love to take it to picnics because I don’t have to be paranoid about everyone getting salmonella from a mayonnaise-based dressing on a hot day.