It’s amazing when you are growing up before you get the chance to go to your friends’ houses, what you consider “normal”. It’s all fine ‘til you visit your friends for the first time and realize that they can have an entire room with nothing in it. You ask if they just moved in, and they let you know they grew up in the house. You wonder what anyone reads. Why are there no newspapers strewn about or magazines lying around? Where is the furniture? How does anyone live like this? Then they come to your house, look around, and think the same thing! LOL!
Some of the strongest memories I have from growing up revolve around food. It’s funny because growing up meant cooking for a crowd. When I moved out on my own, I still cooked for the crowd and needed to learn how to drastically cut back the servings. Leftovers got old and abundant. One thing we had often was spaghetti. Often, like once a week. We had pizza once a week as well. Another staple was the good old casserole.
Casseroles were for dinner, to make if anyone was sick, hospitalized, and to take to funerals. You could always tell something was wrong by looking in the fridge and seeing the abundance of casseroles from friends and family. Tuna Noodle Casserole was always a hit along with any type of chicken and rice casserole. My mother was sick a great deal of my childhood so the church choir members would bring over casserole for the family. What made this interesting was that the choir was made up of many people from different nationalities. This meant you weren’t always sure what exactly was in the casserole. All they said was, “Here’s some casserole.”
Another food-centered event growing up was birthdays! Most of our birthdays happened within weeks of each other. Everyone had their own cake; there was no sharing. Some of us had a train cake with the different candy cars, ice cream cakes, fruit-filled cake basically it was a sugarfest for months! It’s been interesting growing up and trying to have a different relationship with food. I mean Little Debbie was practically a member of our family! When I first moved out on my own, I never bought snacks. So no pretzels, chips or anything like that. When family visited, they didn’t know how I could live like that! LOL!
I think back and remember the memories from growing up. I try (some hit some miss) to make the recipes from my youth and remember family members who’ve passed.
A Saucy Dame 