Memories

The holiday season brings all sorts of emotions and memories rushing forward. Not that we don't have these things all year, but. it seems exceedingly heightened with Thanksgiving ended and the run up to Christmas beginning. Been thinking tons about the things hat I cherised especially as a young adult, before marriage and kids and extended families. When I was in high school my older brother and I lived with our mom, and I've been thinking about those times a great deal lately, and for some unknown reason the foods that I loved. Some things I never really introduced my kids to like Corn Chowder. It's on the menu for dinner tonight, I think it is a tried and trued staple of comfort food for northern houses. My mom did not make a version that cost a lot of money, cause she was a single parent with a couple of teenagers in the house. Milk, bacon, onion, potatoes, chicken broth and corn with lots of pepper in it. My mom liked pepper, pretty much everything she made that I have been craving of late had lots of pepper in it. Of course winter makes you think of stews and soups. Next weekend I think her beef stew will be on the menu. I have never been able to make it taste like she did, but I still love a good beef stew when it's cold and rainy out. I don't remember ever making corn chowder when the kids were growing up, I truly enbraced (if you will) all things about being married to an Italian and for the most part the kids grew up with a mostly Italian diet. Not sure why I did that, but I am working really hard on re-creating some of the most beloved meals from my childhood mostly for myself, but with the assumption that Adrian will also love these meals. A day doesn't go by that I don't think about mom and really miss her. She's not passed yet, but she is entirely gone. The beauty of living so far away is I don't feel guilty for not going to see her regularly. When I am back in SF I try to make at least one visit over to the home to just let them know that my sister is not alone, and that we all still love our mother. I miss her like crazy, we certainly didn't always see eye to eye, but she was an amazing smart and independant woman, who set the most amazing example of how to live and love for her children. I recognize that this is all crazy ramblings and very unfocused, but, I did warn you that this was the furture of this blog. So as the holiday season encroaches on your life, take a moment to remember those things that brought you special joy wen you were growing into the person you are today.