User: omglawdork Date: 2009-12-03 14:17 Subject: Fond Food Memories Security: Public Tags: family life, food musings

So I was reading a Serious Eats post about people's favorite food memories from childhood, and it got me thinking about what mine are. I have lots and lots, but here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:

1) OMGLawDad making us peanut butter and syrup (PB and Aunt Jemima mixed together into a slurry with a fork) on Saturday mornings (and, if we were really lucky, biscuits to eat it with);

2) OMGLawMom's tradition of making our favorite cakes on our birthdays (and OMGLawDad making OMGLawMom her favorite cake for hers) - for me and Middle!Sister, that was usually a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a design on top made of plain M&Ms - for Baby!Sister, it was angel food with strawberries;

2a) My first semester of college, when I was away from home for the first time and still pretty homesick, even after four months away, and my MeMa showed up at my dorm room on my birthday with a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and M&Ms on top (I still tear up just thinking about it and how loved I felt);

3) My MeMa's banana pudding;

4) Sharing one of those big family-sized cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli with my Grandmother every time I went out there for the summers and sometimes even after I moved there for school (I don't know if she loved it as much as I did do, but she played along);

5) My Spanish mom trying to teach me to make paella, and all those wonderful chorizo and salchichon sandwiches she always sent me to school with (and my parents bringing me a box of Thin Mints from home when they came to visit - cookies have never tasted so good); and

6) My mom making "Chicken Fried Kitchen" for my dad on his birthday, even though making chicken fried steak at home totally trashed the whole kitchen! That's love.


As we enter this festive season of family and food - and I enter a new life-season of making food memories with a new little person in a couple of months - what are your favorite childhood food memories, o f-list?

User: mmaresca Date: 2009-11-30 01:05 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Thorn of Dentonhill has gone from a light-weight 70,000 words to a lean-but-strong fighting weight of 90,000. I feel pretty good about the additions.

I should probably give it a read-through for spelling, grammar, making sure I didn't screw up the timeline, etc. But that's not the point. The point is I got the task done. And I'm pretty damn proud of that.

User: mmaresca Date: 2009-11-28 21:27 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I have less than 2000 words to go, and I have chocolate pecan pie.

Life is all right.

User: mmaresca Date: 2009-11-27 17:53 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

OK, stillsostrange, I'll admit I wasn't initially hooked by The Drowning City, until I reached the point where they commission the smuggler's ship.

And then I realized that not only is the name of the ship the Rain Dog, but the CAPTAIN IS A ONE-ARMED DWARF. And he's playing dice along the wharf! And the code phrase is, essentially, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." And he takes the ring.

Howling with laughter, I was.

Well played, Ms. Downum. Well played, indeed.

User: mmaresca Date: 2009-11-23 10:31 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Yesterday in the bookstore I noticed Stephen King's "The Dome", and I took a cursory glance at it. The thing that stood out to me: no text on the back cover. No text on either jacket flaps. The only text at all was "Stephen King" and "The Dome". It was almost as if the dustjacket was saying, "Fuck you, we don't need to tell you anything about this book other than it's Stephen motherfucking King and therefore you've already decided whether or not you're buying it so shut the fuck up and go get in the check in line."

Or, maybe I'm just reading into things.

User: mmaresca Date: 2009-11-22 13:35 Subject: Geek Parenting Security: Public

Conversation in our household:

Me: What are you doing?
Nicholas: Drawing.
Me: What are you-- you're drawing like Rob Liefeld!
Nicholas: Well--
Me: NO SON OF MINE WILL DRAW LIKE ROB LIEFELD!