New age chicken salad

Chicken second courses

Remember the '80s? Crystals. Pyramids. Channeling. Mood rings?! Ronald Regan legitimized the brown for crying out loud suit. Ketchup was a vegetable, while Chez Panisse over in Berkeley was flexing its muscles. I was working in San Francisco at the time. I wore business suits, just not brown ones. A new lunch spot opened near my office, easy walking distance. I don't remember the name of the place, or if I ever ordered anything but this sandwich. I have no memory of what it was even called - the New Age bit is my own. I do remember as clear as yesterday sitting down right there to eat it, a book to hand, rather than return to the office where someone might do something so uncivilized as interrupt my state of bliss with conversation. The combination of flavors was simply so perfect, bite after exquisite bite. And I don't recall that a pregnancy was involved. <br /> <br />I've been making it ever since in various reincarnations. When lettuce wraps sailed onto the culinary horizon, I was at the ready, matey. The original was served on a heavenly fresh dill bread; I've also used Julia Child's potato-dill bread. Sometimes during the summer, though, it is just too hot to fire up an oven for bread. So during the hot months I've taken to stuffing it into pita halves. Great camp/hiking food. Portable, a cinch to transport everything broken down to assemble at the top of the trail you've just climbed, or on a picnic table at the edge of a lake you've just swum out of. No crystals or pyramids to lug along, simply the channeling of a great lunch. And don't get me started on that brown suit . . .