Sitting in my grandma's kitchen during thankgiving time.
I remember sitting on one of those stepstools that look kind of like a high chair, and watching her mix up the pumpkin pie batter. She had this big sunbeam mixer that had a certain smell when it ran, which I came to associate with good things in the making.
And then there was the smell of spice: ginger, cinnamon, allspice...I would watch her crack eggs, and measure out the canned milk she used instead of cream.
Days gone forever.
My Mom's cooking. The smell of celery, sage, onions and butter on Thanksgiving morning (for the dressing) and her Rouladen.
Tuna, noodle, and potato chips. All mixed together. My mom made it and I LOVED it!
I miss the ORIGINAL Slim Jims before they added soy. That damn soy additive RUINED the taste. But before the soy was added it was DELICIOUS. Crunchy but moist on the inside.
Bacaloa frito in Puerto Rico. Street vendors used to sell them at about a quarter a piece. It was fried cod but fried in a special PR style. BTW, cod has become a rarity in recent years but I LOVED that bacalao frito!
Greek pizza. There was a Greek guy near me who sold square (not round) pizza in square slices. What really made it different is that he smothered the pizza in olive oil. VERY TASTY. Never had pizza like it since.
Another food item I loved in Puerto Rico was coco frio, cold green coconuts. First they would open up a hole in the coconut from which you would drink the coconut water with a straw. Then they would open up the empty coconut with a machete with along with a slice from the outer shell to use as a scoop and I would scoop out the SOFT meat of the coconut. Great on hot days!
Also.......fish sticks.
On Christmas eve a man who worked for my Dad, would come by with his wife and drop off home made tamales. We'd have them for breakfast on Christmas morning. The best ever!
Pizza...the one I had yesterday, the one I had last Thursday, the one I had the Sunday before that, the one I had...
:-) (Ok, maybe not that often...)
Actually, in my food-memory vault I retain cordon-bleu in a great gasthause in Germany.
I remember my grandmother's homemade popovers and molasses raisin bread. Homemade bread and tea would accompany every meal. I loved thick slabs of that molasses raisin bread spread with jam. I also enjoyed the occasional supper of fried bologna, ham and duck eggs. The duck eggs came straight from the nest that morning.
But the best thing, ever, was my dad's Hot Dog Goulash recipe: 1 small onion, chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1 package hot dogs, sliced
2 cans stewed tomatoes
toss it all (except the canned tomatoes) into a pan and sautee in 1 tbsp oil. Seaon with pepper, garlic...
When lightly browned, add the tomatoes, and simmer for about 20-30 minutes.
Serve over rice.
Of course, back in the day, he used the regular old pork dogs, but a healthier version would be to use the turkey dogs, and serve over brown rice.
We spice it up now with tabasco or hot sauce, but back then, it would have been sacreligious to do so!
One of my favorite desserts as a kid was bananas in milk with sugar. Yum! It was great until I developed an allergy to bananas.
halusky, like grandma made.
Ja jadat halusky!
Shakey's Pizza in Puyallup for special occasions. We would watch silent movies, watch the guys fling the dough and put the toppings on.. I remember it as being good pizza but we moved out of that when I was 11 so what do I know?!
The drive-in. No clue what it was called, but it was where my mom took my brother and I for lunch on shopping day. Cotton candy at the fair. Hotdogs at the game when I would get to go with my dad and grandpa. The buffet my dad's parents would take us to - Royal Fork, I think it was. No clue if the food was good but the memories are! Same with the cafeteria at UPS in Tacoma in the 70's. Good memories.
My Grandma's chicken casserole, homemade noodles and doughnuts.. My other Grandma's crab salad (that no one in the family can make, no one got the recipe before she died) My great-grandma's mincemeat cookies, raisin cake and Tang. Corn on the cob from my great-grandpa's garden. Cherries from his orchard, made better by reading under the trees and reaching up to pick the fruit:)
Making pizza with my mom and dad, my mom's cookies and my dad's pies. Decorating cookies with them. Easter eggs and the resulting deviled eggs. Lots of good memories, all of which were made good by the people and events at the time.
Most of these things are regulars in my house now, so the memories will be passed down for another generation.
What an excellent thread. What a great way to produce good vibes; a rare event nowadays.