The Incredible Soothing Power of Food

Raspberry Banana Muffins
day 103

I grew up in a house of cooks. My mother was the main one, a woman who would routinely bake biscuits and fruit pies, pot roasts, Cornish hens and bourbon brown sugar crusted hams. My father was an organic gardener routinely harvesting heirloom tomatoes, peaches, basil and lavender and capable of making the best BLT on the eastern seaboard. At an early age, my mother ceded cookie baking to me; this led to my own  allegiance to those who love their moments of creating in the kitchen. As women were fleeing kitchens and most men learning to eat more and more manufactured meals at home and in restaurants, I was dreaming of a kitchen with every spice known on every continent and cobalt blue bowls for mixing salads and breakfast breads.


As my father continues his painstaking journey to good health I am reminded of the soothing power of food. So much of what we eat is garbage ... processed, made by others in factories where human hands neither stir nor touch.  


When I make mashed potatoes or roll lemons for lemonade I am so often reminded of my childhood. When I bake muffins, I think about summers running in the yard then going in to wash up and eat at the family table. I think about catching fire flies in mayonnaise jars, and jumping rope and eating popsicles on the porch. Mostly, I think about good things.


Good night friends,
Wanda