My dear husband, with whom I’ve cared for 12 years now (married eleven next month) says I made him a food snob.
I was seven when I got the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook out of the local library and amassed $ 31 cents of late fees. The library called my mother on the serious debt. I didn’t want to give it up, and did not have to do so because a new copy arrived for my 8th birthday two weeks later.
By then I already knew how to make a perfectly dry vodka martini, but had never sipped one. Dad liked his when he got home from work, though.
My tastes were plebean, but I remember a few favorite things from then. We always tried to make Mom and Dad breakfast in bed. We’d get the cinnamon rolls and orange rolls you unwrap and pop on the side of the counter, turn on the oven, bake and frost them. Of course they were in the dining room by then.
My younger sister and I were not allowed soda so I asked if I could add orange juice to ginger ale. Now, decades later I cut my OJ with sparkling mineral water and always keep a warm bottle of ginger ale in case my tummy is upset.
You’ll love this one. We were not allowed to have individually wrapped American cheese slices. Every few years I get a loaf of seeded rye bread and top it with individually wrapped American cheese. My bad, I did it today!
There are some old taste habits one never loses. At this point in my life, who cares who knows? My father and brother always liked the dry packaged soup mix that said it was “chicken noodle” but had no chicken in it, only salt. To each his/her own. Dee
Cooking with Dee 