Food & ...
Food and other things that might include: love, guilt, longing, feeling good when the going gets the toughest, and oh so many things.
"Nothing will again."
Anon
I remember fresh lemon zest falling into bright mountains, little piles from over a dozen lemons, because it was time to make the lemon bread. Lemons are purifying, protective, and lucky in Romanic culture, and my grandmother made these potent sweet and tart loaf cakes as gifts for every birthday and holiday. She grew up hungry in the way, so every holiday’s most precious gift was fruit or this sacred dessert, moist and drenched in hot lemon juice and powdered sugar with a crust just softly caramelized. It tasted of her wishes. Nothing will again.
Food Memories - The Love of Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs
By Michael Skinner
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I've loved spaghetti sauce and meatballs since childhood. Both of my parents were good cooks, but neither would share how they made the dishes that they created. It must have been a trade secret.
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I made my first spaghetti sauce and meatballs in 1976 when I was touring Great Britain with a rock band. Somehow, I became the designated cook when we were staying at a hotel, band house, or in a rented manufactured home. It saved money not being forced to eat at restaurants all the time.
I remembered the key ingredients for the sauce-making and meatball creations. I would sneak peeks into the kitchen when my parents cooked so I had a semblance of what was used before being shushed out of the kitchen.
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I discovered in the making of the spaghetti sauce, meatballs, and other creations, that I loved to cook and there was a creative force helping me in making the dishes for four band members and the three-man road crew. In time I found pleasure and it was a great stress relief to make something tasty after wrapping up a tour. The same applies today when coming home from a speaking engagement, performance, or workshop I presented.
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The spaghetti sauce and meatballs were delicious and later in life, I enjoyed the moments that my daughters engaged with me in making the meal. I laid out all the ingredients on the dining room table, and gave them the instructions on the process of steps, first with the sauce, then the meatballs. There were lots of giggling from the younger ones and beaming smiles from the older girls, especially when reaching in and forming the meatballs to be placed on the baking pan. These were messy experiences, but times of pure joy for me to see my daughters enjoying these moments of creating with their dad.
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A recent visit to California to spend the Christmas holiday with my oldest daughter and granddaughter allowed me to help her make Chicken Parmesan for a supper and a roast for Christmas day dinner. Before I arrive she always sends me an e-mail on certain food dishes she'd like me to make while spending time with her. My cheese sauce is always in demand. I've shown her how to make it several times, but I think she likes my rendition of cheese sauce to be placed over the scrambled eggs and home fries I have nurtured to perfection.
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These food memories will always be with me and they help give me peace. My daughters compliment me as being a chef, I tell them, “No, I'm a good cook but wouldn't say I'm a chef.” When I was younger I was always fascinated watching the cook or cooks in a breakfast diner work their magic. I always thought that someday when I retire I would work in a diner. Now it's just a dream, I couldn't handle the stress. But I can still make an incredible big breakfast for family or friends in my home or theirs. And I'm okay with that.
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I love cooking, it brings me joy and peace.
Before We Knew About Food Allergies...
By Heather
Here is a story young people wont know. In the 60s scallops and clams were cheap. My sister (and unbeknownst to me at the time, my child-aged husband in another state), used to say “ they [the scallops and clams] make my throat itch.” In response, my mom and his mom said the same thing, “Eat what you are served, Eat it!” Well in our house (and in my child-aged husband’s house) the same thing happened, eventually my sister and he, had eyes swollen shut due to a full allergic reaction. There were no treatments at the time. No one had heard of food allergies back then.
Baked potatoes with salsa
Julianna
Baked potatoes with ranch. Baked potatoes salted and peppered. Baked potatoes while watching Lassie to cover up the sounds of adult films being made in the next room over. These were the months in the Minnie Mouse Motel when all we could afford were potatoes. I don’t remember ever being bothered by it, I just remember using my brain to make little games about which part of the potato I would eat first, how much of the skin I would pair with the soft center.
Was today’s potato skin chewy or soft?
What does it feel like with warm potato and cold salsa in the mouth?
The pliability of kids never ceases to amaze me. When we were off the road and back in the house that my grandparents let us stay in Charleston, SC, where they bought our groceries, my mom would host dinner parties with fine China, real silver, and Vivaldi wafting through the air with the other smells of fine southern cooking. Why did it not feel strange to me to live both of these realities in the span of six months? I’ll never know, but I’ll always think of it when I break open a baked potato.
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​​Something Sweet Before Something Hard
By Danielle Festa
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The bananas are past peak. Do they still serve a purpose?
Yes.
They are ready to transform to be in harmony with sugar, flour, eggs… I forget the ingredients now, but I remember making banana bread for the first time. I made it to bring to middle school. The stakes were high. A performance piece. No practice. Have I always put this pressure on myself?
Maybe.
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The risk paid off. The candied crust was perfectly crunchy. The smashed bananas peer[ing] through the nooks and crannies, as if to say, “I am still here. Still me, but better.” Baking always intimidated me. My mother is the best baker I know. Is that why? I hear from my daughter at times that she doesn’t want to paint with me because I am the best.
Why do we pause in the footsteps of our parents?
Of course our parents are experts at something they love to do. I want Heidi to join me or find what she loves without comparison. My mother does make delicious banana bread. And so do I. I only think to make banana bread when I see the bananas turn. They are calling out to me to give them a chance to be transformed. I embrace the opportunity. They are ready and so am I.
The baking involves taking a chance that it might burn, dry out, or undercook. But when it comes out right, the reward is so sweet. Crunchy, sweet, soft, and satisfying. On its own, or with cream cheese, or with butter. Warm out of the oven, or cool from the fridge. It presents itself in the morning so that my day can start off right. Now, my breakfast is a prelude to cushion the blow from my chemo pills.
I haven’t invited the old bananas to be a part of this ritual yet.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe instead of waiting for my bananas to overripen, I could go to the store and save the ones that could be discarded. Can I be their savior? Certainly not for all, but for some. It is decided. Tomorrow, I will make the time and allow the transformation to take place. If it isn’t perfect, that is ok, too.
I will enjoy it with cream cheese if it is dry.
I will cut off the edges if they burn.
I will put it back in the oven if it is undercooked.
These bananas will rise to the occasion to be present for the controlled poisoning. The intentional practice of swallowing the large pills that will block the cancer from returning. Something sweet before something hard. I will give the bananas a new purpose.
I have always struggled in my relationship with food, at least as far back as I can remember. See, I’m autistic, but didn’t know that until last year. I was the kid who hummed loudly, dubbed my “yummy sound,” until I was shamed out of it. I was the kid who got used to detaching myself from my body. This led to issues like remembering to eat, even knowing what I like, or don’t like, in a world not built for me. I’m now the adult who is left to figure all of that out. I’m practicing stepping back into the “yummy sound,” even when I know the world wants me to stay detached for their convenience. Maybe I’ll never be convenient. Maybe that’s okay.
Ever tried to get a recipe right?
Laura's Story
Bread is something that I've always struggled to make but especially gluten free bread. I became mostly gluten free around a year ago and have found that almost all gluten free bread is small. I have yet to find a gluten free bread that includes everything I'm looking for: multiple different starches, not just 1, not much added salt or sugar and some protein. That is what I want in my ideal gluten free bread but I can't seem to get it or make it.
I've tried making bread multiple times in my life for occasions like Thanksgiving dinner, but even then it never came out how I wanted it to. This past Thanksgiving I attempted to make gluten free bread for the first time, I followed the exact recipe but somehow mine didn't rise. Luckily we had gotten frozen gluten free rolls just in case and they were needed.
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Christmas came around and I decided to try again but for the second time it failed. I was very upset because I do know my way around the kitchen and have had many recipes that I've attempted on the first try turn out right, so I was confused why this wasn't working for me.
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After some thought I believe that I was able to figure out what was wrong both times. I've yet to re-attempt making gluten free bread because I am a perfectionist when it comes to baking. The thought of having it fail me for a third time makes me apprehensive to attempt it again. Bread is quite simple to make once you get the hang of it and it's honestly confusing to me that I, a skilled baker, can't get it right.
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Easter is approaching so I will try to make gluten free bread with everything I want, including a slice that's bigger than the palm of my hand.
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I love food. I love food too much. I have a love and I have a relationship with food. I am desperate to lose weight but I have no control over how much I eat. If I open a bag, I finish a bag. Chips and salsa are life!
So, in an effort to control portion sizes, I took on cooking chores and I tried to make sensible, but nourishing portions. For my wife and I, things were going great until my wife was diagnosed diabetic and put on a weight loss drug. My wife has no appetite. So, I am eating for one now.
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Anonymous
Since as long as I can remember, Sundays are for homemade pasta, hand-rolled meatballs, and gooey chocolate chip cookies. We, as in my Mother, Father, and I, would go to my grandparents’ house - a house built from the foundation by my great grandfather whom I have never met. Yet the smell of fresh, steaming tomato sauce would waft its way across the room the moment the doorknob is shifted counter clockwise. The tastes at the table were both sweet and savory and colossal, yet, enough all at once. This pasta may have been homemade from a machine that had been passed generationally like passing bread and butter from one end to the other with care.
Sundays continue to be days of sacred unity of generations long gone. Or maybe Sundays are spent in three homes or five of single occupants unable to always afford the trip down. Instead these homes of single occupants aren’t always bustling to pass the bread, rather, they are bustling to stir an inherited generational sauce in a store bought crock pot.
Will we remember how they stirred as a child or will they find a more efficient way to get to the meal faster?
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Katrina
Cooking As A Love Language
Loli
Newly married, over 30 years ago, I had a mother-in-law, who could be very difficult to get along with. She was also of Italian heritage + a fantastic cook! I bonded with her over allowing her to teach me several of her traditional dishes- tomato sauce, homemade meatballs, lasagna, and stuffed artichokes - all from scratch. She has been gone for 5 years now but I still make all these foods and talk to her spirit sometimes as I do. She taught me not just the recipes but the joy of cooking as a love language.
One of my favorite meals to make with my partner is butternut squash risotto. We’ve been making it for probably six years now. It’s so creamy, comforting, and seems decadent, but it’s actually pretty easy to make. When it came time to invite our friend + sperm donor over for dinner to talk about baby making timelines, I knew I wanted to make one of our faves. He told us how rarely he cooks for himself, and I realized what nice mutual aid it would be to cook for him when we do the sperm drops + pick ups in the future. Not just being able to offer him something in return, but deepening our friendship over food. I can imagine telling our future child(ren) when we make butternut squash risotto for them, “The idea of you really started when we made this same meal for Uncle Steven.
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Linds
The light humor in my home as a child was this love for Mexican food. My Mother liked to joke that she kept eating spicier and spicier food as her pregnancy went past due. I always found comfort in the blend of tortillas, and whatever was available. It was my escape into a world where my senses were stimulated, but in quiet time to myself. Making fresh salsa gave me these bursts of spring, summer, and freedom. Only the best tortillas would do, balancing crispyness with salt. But it was also my escape. My hiding place. My place to be alone in my fears. My salve to my loneliness.
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Anonymous