Food to me

I’ve been meaning for a while now to update my blog with all the things that have happened recently. At any rate, many things have happened and as I look back, there has continued to be a continual positive change as time progresses. I still love work completely – I wake up every morning with a mix of excitement and a tinge of anxiety for what the day will hold. Usually I learn something new every day – whether its creating something I’ve never had the chance to in the past, or having an opportunity to refine a skill I already have or discovering away to make something good into something great. My boss continues to push me and encourages me to expand my horizons and strive for perfection. I appreciated it at first with a sense of respect, but now I demand it of myself. Good enough simply isn’t good enough anymore and I love that I’ve gotten to that point already in my career. As a result I expect incredible things from myself and I know I’ll accomplish it by being where I am.

I mentioned before on the blog that one of the hard things for me with creating the menu for this past season was flavor profiling and creating items – in truth, I still struggle with that, but I appreciate the challenge. Something that has helped was a book that was recommended to me by a co-worker entitled Not for Bread Alone – Writers on food, wine and the art of eating (Daniel Halpern). It is a collection of some of the greatest minds in culinary on their experiences with food, how it affects them, their origins with it, their ideas of the future of it and so on. It really got me thinking about my origins of food and where my love of food began.

I can remember looking forward to my mom doing wedding cakes, which meant I'd be taking scraps of wedding cake from a giant plastic bowl and dipping it in the other large bowl filled with white butter cream; I remember my mom making a delicious almond plum tart in a sheet pan and eating so much of it that I made myself sick (and I’d usually eat it row by row instead of piece by piece so no one knew that I was taking as much as I was – my idea of being clever… something I still tend to do when Scott makes cookie bars); I remember my best friend and I making birthday cakes for each other with the most random flavors (Do you remember when boxed cakes had tropical flavors, like kiwi?); I remember making caramel corn with my siblings from a kids cookbook that we used so many times the pages stuck together; I remember pistachio pudding (with mini marshmallows) feeling like a luxury; I remember completely disregarding the great things my mom had planted in the back – tromping through raspberry bushes, hating the plumb trees because of how they smelled when the fruit fell and rotted on the ground, playing batting practice with the not quite ripe green apples in the large tree – never really making the connection between the things that were growing in the back were actually edible and delicious.

I can never quite recall my mom making meals – since my dad passed away when I was really young, she would spend most of her time at work or school and I can vividly remember eating out a lot. Taco Time was a favorite spot and reminds me of mom simply because we would make journeys there if only for large Cokes with the pebble ice. Likewise, Sunday traditions would include getting donuts from Winchells and later on grabbing a bucket of KFC and either going for a Sunday drive or spending time together in my Mom’s room watching TV. And to this day, I still feel like a McDonalds Coke will cure anything.

My siblings can probably remember a time when my mom would cook regularly but, aside from her wedding cakes, I simply do not. And it’s nothing against her in any way because I know she was incredibly busy and was truly doing all she could do – I mean, after work and school, coming home to cook a meal for 5 people probably didn’t seem like the most practical. I feel ashamed to say it, but I hated bringing a lunch to school – and Mom always packed one for me despite all she was doing. I know she was doing the best she could, but I remember on a number of occasions eating PB&J sandwiches on hamburger buns, an apple and crumbly potato chips and I was so embarrassed to eat it front of people. It seems so silly now to look back on and especially now that money can be tight for me at times, so I improvise in random ways like she did. But I also remember my initial or nickname always being on the brown paper sack with a smile – and sometimes she would even include a note just to say she loved me and to do well in school. (I think I still have a lot of those notes in a box somewhere – even at 7 or 8, I thought it was the sweetest thing ever.)

It’s pretty interesting how our lives connect with food – I mean, really, you spend 3 times a day (hopefully) devoting time specifically to nourishing yourself and more often than not, enjoying that food with someone you love &/or doing something you enjoy. Food is directly connected to love and pleasure. I encourage anyone reading this to really look back on your life and think about your memories of food – it’s actually quite an experience.

This entry took a completely different route than anticipated – there is still so much to say, but apparently this needed to be said at this time.

Speaking of food – it is definitely dinner time.