Recipe for a delicious Memorial Day picnic

Mother absolutely loved being what used to be called a "housewife." I have never seen anyone as proud as she was of her perfectly polished terrazzo floors, her fresh-smelling laundry after taking it all off the clothesline, or her crisply ironed everything we owned.

I never considered Mom to be obsessive about cleaning, but in looking back, maybe she was just a tad over the top at times. Like when she'd clean the house spotless - clean sheets on the beds, every dish washed, dried and put away, no dirty clothes anywhere and the outside completely swept - as we were walking out the door to go on vacation. She never wanted to come home to any kind of mess. I can't really say that I blame her. There's enough to do after returning from a one or two week vacation without having "leftovers."

And isn't it funny how the passing of traits goes; bits and pieces of the good and not-so-good going out like debris flying around in a tornado and haphazardly landing where it may. You never know where it's going to go; who's going to end up with what trait, or how far the apple will fall from the tree. My youngest sister is definitely most like Mom when it comes to house cleaning and organizing; her daughters laughing one time when they told me about an incident that involved a spot on the floor (and the spot winning). My oldest sister is the complete opposite, keeping her home tidy, but not the winner of any Good House-Keeping awards. My brother can be very picky about his things, particularly about his truck (although that could be just the story of a man and his truck, as opposed to genetics). And I guess I'm somewhere in the middle of it all; my house is very clean and organized, but it doesn't have to be that way at all times. In fact, since Mother passed away, there have actually been days when I didn't make the bed, and it didn't cause any nervous facial ticks. (Although, the key words there were "since Mother passed away." I can't say I'd have done that while she was living with us.)

Another thing that made Mom very happy was cooking. Daddy always said he taught her everything she knew. He was such a kidder and prankster that, to this day, I don't really know if that story's true, because Mom never actually denied it. Enjoying the kitchen is something that three of us inherited - my brother, younger sister and I. My older sister, well, not so much. She doesn't cook.

But that brings me to the reason for this post today. We have Memorial Day weekend coming up; a time when families and friends get together for some beaching, fishing and swimming. It marks the start of summer, so I thought I'd share the simplest of recipes with you to take to your cookout. It's a dip that's sure to please even the most discerning of foodies.

My mother made this dip for as long as I can remember, and none of us ever asked her how it was made. We just assumed it was an old family recipe that would be too difficult for us to master. Then one day, my niece very innocently asked her gramma, "How do you make this? Can I have the recipe?"

You could hear a pin drop.

Then Mom started laughing, more like a guffaw and pretty much uncontrollably. When she finally settled down, Mom shared the "family recipe" with all of us.

Here's what you'll need:
One package of cream cheese
One bottle of Catalina salad dressing

Yep, that's it. Take the cream cheese out of the fridge for about an hour to soften, then put it in a bowl. Add about a 1/4-cup of the Catalina dressing and then beat with an electric mixer until it's all blended and softened. If you want additional flavor, add more dressing.
That's it.
Absolutely delicious with chips and crackers, but Mom used to also put it on the curly, tubed inside of celery strips and it was yummy!

This photo was taken about three years ago when I was in the middle of helping Mom make scrapbook cookbooks to give to all of her children for Christmas. We were talking about the day my niece asked how to make the dip, when she once again was filled with laughter.

Here's the clincher to the story. This wasn't a recipe that had been handed down from her mother and her mother's mother, like we had all imagined. Mom got the recipe off the back of the label of the Catalina dressing bottle decades ago! How funny is that?

Every single person in our family loves this dip, and we all associate Mom with it. So, while it wasn't an old family recipe being passed down to a new generation, it was a 'new' family recipe that will go forward with all of us.

This is one of those "traits" we all retained from Mom -- and the deliciousness of that dip is an apple that hasn't even fallen off the tree, and likely never will.