But the greatest of these is Love

Food is a huge deal in my family, as it is for many families. My mother was a stay at home mom. This meant homemade cookies and pies, lots of trips to the park and library and most of all dinner with the family every night. We didn’t go out to eat very often. Sometimes after church on Sunday we’d go to Rice Bowl (my mom swears I was weaned on their chow mein) and that was a huge treat. Largely, the food I consumed was homemade. No Oreos or Twinkies (much to my dismay), no soda or candy (except Halloween where we then had to store the candy and were doled out one piece a day til all that was left was the crappy candy no one, not even your dad, wanted to eat), no fast food except the illicit happy meal once in a while, when mom was feeling flush. As a youngster I really resented not having all the high fructose corn syrup crap that my friends got. Oh how jealous was I when they pulled HoHos out of their lunch bag? Really jealous.

Now as an adult, I can’t stand it. Twinkies make me nauseous, food coloring makes my brain spin out and processed food tastes largely like chemicals to me. And there is no way on God’s green earth I’m going to choke down a piece of grocery store pie (one of my mother’s specialties, pies delicious pies).As I get older and older, I find myself becoming more and more particular. Things must be delicious all the time. I really don’t have the patience (or waistline) to be eating junk. I do make the occasional exception for oh say…..cheese food or potato chips, weaknesses to be sure. But then we all have our culinary guilty pleasures.

I appreciate my food background. I understand that my mother made all the food that nourished my sister, father and I with love. When people ask me ‘What did you put in this’? I frequently will ad ‘Love’ to my list of ingredients. Cheesy? Yes, terribly. True? Absolutely! Sometimes when I make something and it doesn’t turn out well I think about my frame of mind when I made it. Was I happy? Was I sad? Was I irritated I forgot some ingredient? It all ties together. When I make food for a birthday party for a loved one I try to think about the person when I’m making it, how much they will enjoy the food I’ve made and how happy it makes me to make them happy. I find this food always turns out the best, always. As a matter of fact I think they should add ‘Love’ to the list of the tastes-
Sweet, bitter, sour, salty , savory and love.