My Mayonnaise

I've grown up eating my grand-mother and my mother's mayonnaise, always loving it and taking it for granted. Now that I am far away from them, and that I sworn off high fructose corn syrup a few months ago and that most store bought mayonnaise contain it, I decided that it was time for me to follow the family tradition of homemade mayonnaise. I proudly announced my decision to my wonderful boyfriend who I expected to scream in anticipation, when the truth came to the surface: he had actually never had homemade mayonnaise before (which I wouldn't have guessed as his mother is one of the best cooks I know). The pressure reached a new high. Not only did I have to successfully turn an egg yolk and oil into something of thick consistence, I also had to make it good as to cancel any bit of repulsion on home made mayonnaise in my boyfriend's mind.

I waited for my monthly woman activity to be done, as I had heard that it would curse the oil into staying liquid, and not combine to the egg yolk. I took the egg out of the fridge hours beforehand so it would get to room temperature, reviewed and compared multiple mayonnaise recipes on my two favorite recipe websites, marmiton.org and allrecipes.com. After a strong inner debate, I thought that it would probably make it easier for a first time to go with a whisker instead of my bare hands and a spoon. I realized at the last minute that hadn't taken the mustard out of the fridge and that it was not at room temperature, but decided to brave my fears and get started with it anyways.

I put the egg yolk and the mustard in a bowl, turned the whisker on at the lowest speed, which seemed to be as fast comparatively to what a spoon would have done as a race car would to a regular car. I added some oil and waited with my whisker for the magic to happened. The oil stayed oily while questions raced to my mind: was I supposed to add more oil before it would turn into mayonnaise? Wait until it was mayonnaise to add more? Start over? Drop the whisker and go by hand? I opted for a compromise: I took one of the two whiskers of the whisker machine in hope for better luck, and added more oil.

That's at that point that my boyfriend came in the kitchen loudly dying of hunger and strongly suggesting that store bought mayonnaise was already made and ready to be eaten, so why wait? I looked at my mayonnaise, all oily and liquid, ready to be turned into a vinaigrette, and threw the all thing out.

Mayonnaise is in my genes, I know it, I can feel it. It is calling my name and I will make it. Next time, I will go with no mustard, and by hand. Until then, I will take any suggestion or other mayonnaise horror story if anybody has any!

(Photo from http://www.quenchpad.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mayonnaise.jpg)