Sunday, January 09, 2005

Cucumber salad

Do you remember the first time you ever used the Internet? I was just reminded of my first time. I'm making Pad Thai tonight (sort of-- it's out of one of those "Thai Kitchen" boxes) and I decided I'd like to make a cucumber salad with it. My Mom had a perfect recipe for a simple, but delicious salad, but of course I never wrote it down and now I don't remember it. So I decided to go online to look for a recipe. That reminded me of my first Internet experience. It was back when I was working on Capitol Hill, in about 1995 or 1996. For some reason, when our office was first given Internet access it was only on one computer. My friend and coworker, Laura, who was the Congressman's scheduler, was the lucky one. I remember all gathering around Laura's computer in awe. When it was my turn to give it a try, I sat down at her desk, and I remember saying "What do I do?" Somebody said "Just type something in (into a search engine, presumably) and see what it comes up with". For some reason, and I have no idea why, I remember typing "cucumber salad" and being amazed with how this new technology called the Internet came up with a bunch of ideas for recipes for cucumber salad. It's hard to believe that was only about 10 years ago... and it's even harder to imagine what life was like before the Internet. OK, enough procrastinating. Time to find a recipe, and to get started on my German homework for tomorrow.