Three Bean Salad

       As the cold weather approaches, one’s thoughts generally turn to the holidays and traditional foods. We had a few staples at our holiday meals. Homemade cherry cheesecake, green beans with a jar of spaghetti sauce poured over them, and a three bean salad.

       The cheesecake was surprisingly good, despite being homemade. And I’m not really sure what the green beans in red sauce were all about; perhaps my mother thought it was some sort of traditional Italian dish? But it was the three bean salad that was my absolute favorite. And what’s not to love - - fiber, protein, vegetables, omega-3s? Perfection.

       I can still vividly recall the last time I ate three bean salad. I wasn’t much older than four or maybe five. I had helped myself to a post-dinner snack of the favored salad and was happily munching away on it huddled in front of the stove for warmth, when the screaming started. Sibling #1 and Sibling #2 were killing each other in the front room. I have no idea what they were fighting over. I think I was too young to remember much more than the trauma of the pounding feet chasing each other through the house and the shrieks. And the spitting and the blood.

       But I do remember Sibling #2 flying into the kitchen with big brother Sibling #1 hot on her heels. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, more pounding feet, more screaming, more disgusting hockers being spat at each other. And then blood. Sibling #1 had given Sibling #2 a bloody nose and a few drops of that blood fell almost on top of where I was crouching in terror, trying to protect my precious bowl of bean salad from their vile bodily secretions. Of course, I couldn’t be sure if any of the spilled blood had actually landed in my bean salad, so that was it. In my tender four year old mind, bean salad was now equated with blood and screaming and terror. I haven’t touched it since. But then we all have our issues.

       I would like to say that was the end of the trauma, but it was really only the beginning. Sibling #4 soon grew old enough to join in. I’m not sure what it was about the dark haired demon siblings, but they were the only ones that seemed to relish the fight. We light haired siblings were far more civilized.

       I dare say I never got in a single fight over a Nutty Buddy. Sibling #1, the oldest so the first to have a job and money, would buy himself Nutty Buddys or some other treat meant only for him. Of course, with little other treats in the house, some of his Nutty Buddys would go missing. And then the battles began. “Who ate my Nutty Buddy?” could be heard echoing throughout the house. Then pounding feet, then the sound of hockers being dragged from the filthy depths of their throats before being shot out at each other. Sibling #1 and #2 fought primarily over food if I recall. Yet, when they would see on the news that a pair of brothers had shot each other over a steak, they would make derisive comments.

       Siblings #2 and #4, the blood-thirsty as Vikings dark-haired sisters, liked to fight over the use of the car. This must have been after Sibling #3 luckily escaped injury after attempting to drive the brand new car on ice covered roads to the local Dunkin Donuts for her “large coffee, black” and bran muffin and ended up almost totaling it. Sibling #3 learned quickly that Sibling #2 was probably not the best person to call for help after smashing up the new family car. (Which, incidentally, Mother actually won at a race she ran down on the Magnificent Mile. Only you had to be a licensed driver in order to win the car and she didn’t have a license and had to learn how to drive in a matter of hours. Fortunately, that was back before the License for Bribes scandal that resulted in the governor going to jail.) And of course, this fighting was prior to Sibling #4 getting the now damaged goods new car stolen while out on an illicit date with a non-Catholic that Mother secretly purified by sprinkling with holy water. Oh, and they liked to fight over whose fault it was that Sibling #2’s cat, that seemed to make a habit of disappearing in severe weather, was, surprise, surprise, out lost in a raging thunderstorm.

       Sibling #4 also liked to mix it up with big brother Sibling #1. Although, really, who didn’t Sibling #4 like to mix it up with? And while I’m sure that Sibling #1 and Sibling #4 fought over more than the corner chair, the chair is what I primarily remember as being the source of many hocker-fests. I can still picture Sibling #4, always shorter than the rest of us, desperately clinging with all of her limbs to the skuzzy, corner chair that our big brother believed was his birthright to occupy. He would attempt to pull her out of it and she would cling so tightly that when he pulled, both she and the chair to which she had attached herself would lift off the floor. Eventually, after lots of screaming, he would just pick the chair up and hold it upside down until she lost her grip. To her credit, this usually took a while. Then she would pick herself up off the floor and spit a giant hocker on him before fleeing to the stairs with Sibling #1 in hot pursuit. Then they would stand in the stairwell, spitting hockers up and down at each other.

       After one such episode, all of which likely had a lot to do with the stroke Mother suffered many years later, Mother threw Sibling #1 out of the house. It was during a particularly hot summer and he was simply hell bent on being the anti-Christ. For two blissful days, peace reigned. Then my father actually went to Sibling #1’s friend’s house, where Sibling #1 had himself holed up, and, inconceivably, asked Sibling #1 to come home. And so the first born and only male child, returned to reclaim his corner chair throne. I’d hate to think of what Sibling #4 might have rubbed on it when he returned.

       And so it is that I have been depriving myself of a favorite holiday dish. I think, though, that just maybe I’ll find a recipe and make a batch to bring to our next family gathering. After all, the physical fighting has long since stopped. Granted, it has been replaced by a variety of other neurotic behaviors such as twitching, obsessive dishwashing, wearing protective tin foil hats, and the like, but at least the bean salad should remain blood free.