Oh man, I can't get enough of them. I eat a tomato every day. A whole tomato, in one sitting. I can't resist them, when they're fresh and summery. Today, I made my mom take me to a farmstand out by her just so that I could buy enough tomatoes to get me through the weekend. Usually, a little sprinkling of sea salt or gray salt is more than enough seasoning, but if I want variety I've used mayonnaise, olive oil, and various salad dressings. (I'm not sure if everyone does this, but in my family, we eat fresh summer tomatoes spread with mayonnaise as an side dish to most summer meals.) In fact, this rather segues into a meme I've seen floating around the food blogs that simply asks you to list five childhood food memories. Well, chalk tomatoes up as number one. I can't remember a time when the jar of mayonnaise didn't come out to accompany our glorious summer tomatoes.
My number two memory is absolutely most definitely Spaghetti Sunday. Every Sunday in the winter, my mom cooks up a pot of spaghetti. One Sunday, she'd start a double batch by frying up the sausage, which instantly made the whole house smell delightful. I'd wake up to the whole house smelling of Italian food and football games on TV. It was a constant in my life. I could count on it every single Sunday, and my mom's spaghetti is not a shabby meal. It's fantastic and rich; you can't get a better meat sauce in a restaurant.
In much the same vein, another solid childhood food memory is of my dad's deep-dish pizza. He makes some of the most amazing pizza, just utterly delicious. We used to get together with his best friend's family, and the two men would make the pizza, which was then generally eaten (at our house, anyhow) on a Smurfs picnic table. We still eat the pizza, but don't see the people anymore. Strange, but good.
Oooh, I know another one. My mom made ridiculously fantastic cakes when we were kids. I don't mean that the actual cake was fantastic, because she just used boxed cake mix (which we do all love immensely). But my mom learned Wilton cake decorating, and she made all kinds of beautiful cakes. Once, she made a stand-up, 3-D Care Bear cake for my birthday. It was so fantastic! (I won't share the rest of this food memory, though, unless my sister gives me the go-ahead. For reasons you'll either find out, or not, depending on Kate.) My sister had a spooky Halloween cake one year, and that was fun. I know she also did a Mickey Mouse cake as well, but I don't know who that was for. Those cakes were so fun!
And lastly, I fondly remember picking raspberries off the bushes next to our house. I still love raspberries (I think all of us do, actually), and those raspberries, fresh off the bushes, were amazing.
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