Getting Married: Special Recipe Bonus!

So yesterday was really something.

We had a lot of fun.  It was all kind of improvised - the music came courtesy of my nephew's iPhone, we didn't have anything special to wear (not knowing, when we packed up the Villa Muscato last month, that we'd be doing this), and the highlight of the dinnertime entertainment was the restaurant owner's almost endless, clinically detailed breakdown of the night's specials (apparently it's important to know that your fish was flown in from Hawaii just six hours earlier and that the cilantro on it is organic).  Still, I will admit that even though after ten years, five countries, and two dogs, getting married - officially and whole-milk style - was something of a formality, there is undeniably something solemn and awe-inspiring in having someone say to you "By the power vested in me..."

And, because it was an event attended by Miss Rheba, we had treats!  My old pal has a genius for showing up with the perfect trashy dessert, and so our festive pre-dinner cocktails were enlivened with a lovely big dish of Strawberry Pretzel Salad, a fabulous all-American atrocity that I can now attest goes surprisingly well with a little Champagne.  And it's even topical, after a fashion, as the recipe Miss Rheba used was by none other than Paula Deen (it's still on the Food Network website - get it before it's gone!), about whom I knew not a single thing until last week (and a good thing, too, on the whole).  As Miss Rheba says, it's an archetype of its kind, as it contains the Three Vital Ingredients - Cool Whip, Jello, and Something Strange (in this case, pretzels).  That it also has copious butter, sugar, and cream cheese, not to mention pineapple in syrup (just in case it's not sweet enough) only makes it that much more diabetically delicious.

It was particularly thoughtful of Miss Rheba to supply this masterpiece, as she knows that salads like this are a longtime staple of all celebrations in the Muscato family.  Someday I'll have to tell you about the memorable Thanksgiving that gave rise to what is still a catchprase within the clan: "There is no salad!"  Ah, but there was, Blanche, there was...