Cold Plate

I don't like cold food, at least cooked food that's cold. I've always hated that and when I see it, it puts me off my food. Your grandmother can't cook, said my great-uncle who was even a good cook himself. I hated that hard, cold rice. Perhaps she did her best, but by the time it was neatly served in dishes on the table and the soup had been finished, the rest had naturally cooled down. Those hot plates for the dishes weren't there (we had them at home, but not at grandma's) maybe it reminded her too much of the Chinese restaurant, or she simply couldn't be bothered with all the back-and-forth to the kitchen. What did you have for lunch today, an acquaintance asked... Nothing, really, which also means the fridge is still just as full, or is it empty, as before Christmas. It's surprising what you can still find to eat if you really want something. For now, it's nothing, and certainly no lentils as would be the custom in Italy. Eating lentils is said to bring luck and money. It might be interesting to ask at the end of the year how many Italians who ate lentils have made a fortune. There's nothing to gather or gain here, although I did have a financial windfall without eating lentils or anything else. That windfall, by the way, was created by myself a number of years ago and simply forgotten. Those are naturally the best windfalls. Like that tenner you find in the inside pocket of a jacket you haven't worn in a while and clearly never washed either, otherwise you would have come across that money long ago. Do the Dutch have an eating tradition when it comes to the first day of the year? I can't remember one from the past decades. I think we just ate the leftover oliebollen and apple fritters that my grandmother presumably spent days frying from 4 o'clock in the morning until who knows how long. There were washing-up bowls full of oliebollen, and the apple fritters were always in the minority. It was all cold, and yet it still tasted good, though I find nowadays that warm tastes much better and perhaps my grandmother thought so too, seeing as she never touched a single oliebol (unlike her thieving grandchildren, who left the living room more often than normal and headed through the cold corridors towards the study, afraid of being caught with a mouth full). Cold dishes? That can only mean things like potato salad, hussar's salad, Russian egg, salmon salad, or whatever else is in the supermarket aisle or sold by some snack bars. Those cold dishes are still acceptable, unlike those cheap ready-made meal salads with a disgusting slop of overcooked, snot-like pasta on the bottom, or old cold rice, or potatoes that are far too hard. All equally tasteless.

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Prompt: see title
Picture source - it doesn't look very tasty, this American salad (never heard of) but who knows it is. Some potatoes, left vegetables, egg perhaps and mayonnaise?}