Serve Hot and Watch Your Guests Go Crazy!

With a wife and two daughters who are very much at home in the kitchen, my dad, understandably, usually enters the room just as dinner's hitting the table. The preparation of meals is largely handled by us gals, which is just fine with everyone involved. But on the rare occasion when Dad deems to cook, there's a very good chance he's making his signature dish: Party Ryes.

You could call the recipe retro, but that would suggest that Dad had revived it from a forgotten time. The thing is, Dad never stopped making Party Ryes. They debuted in the '70s, when he saw them mentioned on TV during a football game, and he's been making them ever since. A symphony of pimento-stuffed olives, chopped onions, parsley, mayo and swiss cheese, Party Ryes aren't exactly low-cal or high-brow. But nibbled during cocktail hour, especially if you're on vacation, cold beer in hand, deep in a heated game of gin rummy, you could do far worse. The Party Rye is a guilty pleasure appetizer and a nostalgic favorite. With the Superbowl coming up, I suggest you whip up a batch. As Dad wrote at the end of the recipe card he gave me once, "Serve hot and watch your guests go crazy."--S

Party Ryes

Small jar of olives with pimento, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/8 c. fresh parsley, chopped
4 T Mayonnaise ("real not diet")
Party rye bread slices ("no substitute")
Swiss cheese cut into squares

1. Put olives into bowl, add onions, parsley and mayo.
2. Spread onto party rye and top with squares of swiss cheese.
3. Bake on tray in toaster oven or oven broiler until cheese is thoroughly melted.
4. Serve hot and watch your guests go crazy.