On Mother's Day...

I was thinking about some things about my mom today that have helped me become the person I am today. Today I am thinking about my love of cooking. My mother was very supportive of my desire to always make stuff in the kitchen.

Even though we never really had a lot of money when I was growing up, she still bought stuff to bake with. I remember experimenting with cooking at a young age. When I was about 9 years old, I remember grabbing stuff in the cupboard and mixing it all together into a concoction of goop. I remember reading the labels of stuff I was adding and smelling them. I will never forget the first (and last) swig of my goop. It was awful. I remember only two things I put into it: paprika and nutmeg.

Around this same time in my life, I remember being in the kitchen trying to make myself a cup of chocolate milk. We usually had the powder mix. So one day, I was craving some chocolate milk and reached up into the cupboard, found what I thought was the mix, and scooped heaps of chocolaty powder into my milk. I stirred and stirred. Little clumps of powder wouldn't mix and that was my favorite part of drinking it. Bottoms up! Hacking cough and spews of what was not chocolate milk mix but baking cocoa was all over the kitchen. I will never, ever make that mistake again.

Those last two experiences happened when we lived in Marina, CA at the first house. When we were in the second house, I had an unforgettable experience. I got home from school, starving. One of my favorite things to eat then was scrambled eggs. I left the light in the kitchen off and heated up butter in the frying pan. I cracked three eggs into the pan, salted and peppered them, and stirred until done. It smelled a little funny, but I was hungry and didn't care. I scooped it out onto my plate, grabbed a fork, and went to watch TV. After getting all comfy on the couch, looked down to eat my eggs and noticed there were little black things cooking into my eggs. On closer inspection, I realized they weren't pepper specks but ants. That's right, ANTS! It has been over 20 years and I still don't look at scrambled eggs the same way.

When I was 15, I was living with my aunt and uncle for a few months. I loved to make cookies for them. I made a variety of kinds, but the two that stand out the most in my mind: the sand ball cookies and the potato chip cookies. The sand ball cookies are like Russian Tea Cake cookies and don't spread out. My cousins teased me because they thought it was supposed to look like regular cookies. So I decided I would get back at them by making a bizarre cookie without telling them what was in it before they ate them. They liked the cookies and so I told them the secret ingredient. :)

When I was 16ish, I was living in Lake Elsinore. I remember making a white layer cake with kiwi and frosted it with white frosting. I loved it. My mom, not so much. I didn't know that she was allergic to kiwis - at least it makes her tongue itch.

I started experimenting with making stuff lower fat as I got closer to age 18. I have always loved crumb cakes or coffee cakes. So I made one that was fat-free. Ohhhh man, sooo good. If you want the recipe, let me know and I will post it.

Now that I am a mom, I have had to improvise dinners. I learned from my mom how to throw things together that will taste well. I have a love of cooking that I learned from my mother. I love her very much.

Thank you mom. MORE MORE MORE! :)