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An amazing recipe, and accompanying story (talk about your positive thinking -- and the relief of being home:

peanut slaw recipe
3 1/2 cups shredded cabbage
3/4 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup peeled and chopped cucumber
1/2 cup chopped cocktail peanuts
3 tbs diced onion
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 tsp prepared horseradish
1/4 tsp honey mustard
dash of salt
dash of pepper

Combine cabbage, celery, cucumber, peanuts, and onion in a large bowl. Set aside. Combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Add to cabbage mixture; toss well. Cover and chill.

Serves 6.

Rich's Note: There are certain sounds and images and smells that remind me of Vietnam and my time there during the war that wasn’t a war. Describing sounds? That’s relatively easy, like when you mention the thunk of mortars or the whistling scream of rockets and the whup-whup beat of helicopter blades. Images? They’re not difficult. I remember the clouds of iridescent dragonflies hovering and shifting like little formations of surreal troops, soundless, green and red and blue, almost glowing in their brilliance. I remember little Vietnamese girls walking rats on leashes, pretending they were walking their pets as they escorted dinner home. Smells are much more difficult to pass along, yet they can trigger stronger, more intense, memories. Smells can make you stop dead in your tracks, searching for the memory, looking around for the sound and image, maybe making you cringe a bit until a breeze wafts away the odor and you wonder what it was, what strange piece of shrapnel just tumbled through your thoughts. Sometimes I wake at night thinking it was the sound of thunder that sat me up, thinking it was the howitzer flash of lightning that popped my eyes open. But through the open window I can smell the rain run off the leaves to the dark earth below and I’m suddenly glad I’m home.