I've been reading a ton of autobiographies lately, and the thing that impresses me the most is the detailed memory of the authors. They describe in full detail meals from when they were five years old. Granted, Justin reminded me that people generally have better memories of traumatic experiences, and the stories I've been reading have been filled with trauma. So, the good news is, my childhood was never traumatic! In fact, the most vivid memories I have of eating together growing up include: falling out of my chair while eating fishsticks and busting open my lip, thereby missing church and going to the Urgent Care, discovering blood in my chicken casserole either the night of or sometime around Jeff's graduation, and sitting for hours at the dinnertable because I refused to eat my dinner.
Ha, those 'traumatic' experiences aside, I have fond memories of eating together as a family. I loved that we had that time together every night, and I was always sad for my friends when I went to their houses and they didn't have family dinner, with a prayer. If fact, my friends were always more than happy to stay over for dinner. I don't ever remember Mom saying no to any of my friends joining us at the dinnertable, and that happened frequently, whether it was Megan (who made the lemonade first, of course), Liz, Fran, Brett, or anyone else who was around. Good thing we were willing to adjust our "assigned seats" around to include a few more:)
Other pieces of memory in the kitchen include peeling and coring apples and learning how to dehydrate them, mixing cookies or brownies, doing dishes with Brad (who always mysteriously had to go to the bathroom every time we had to do dishes), making lots and lots of mashed potatoes, mixing Country Time lemonade, and making that delicious truffle with pudding and Angel Food Cake (what was that?! Yum!). More recently, I remember retaliating against Dad when he criticized Mom's cooking (he's less prone to do so now!), and I do recall a dinner when Brad and Erica were engaged and Dad told Brad he shouldn't go into the guest room with Erica with the door shut, and Brad tried to shift the blame to me, saying that I did worse things, and then Dad said, "Well I sleep with your Mom!" End of story.
So, Mom, you made mealtimes fantastic. I didn't know that chicken casserole with rice and a cream of something soup wasn't the very best of meals. In fact, if you asked me now what my comfort food is, that's it...with yellow rice. Yum, yum! I specifically remember asking for that as a special birthday meal one time. Speaking of birthdays, I had the very best ones ever! I had a lion cake, a watch cake (can anyone remind me of WHY I would want a watch cake?), and a very amazing golf cake for my 8th birthday party at Putt-Putt golf. I also remember making pinatas at my 10th birthday, inviting like half the school over for my 14th birthday party, where we had to rent a special building to have the dance party, and then having the most special surprise 16th party! You made birthdays awesome, Mom! I hope you have a great one today! I love you!
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