When I went to BlogHer Food, I got some cool things that I thought you guys might enjoy.
Book #1
How to Eat a Small Country — the book looks interesting and I love the title!
Apron
(sorry about the wrinkles!)
Pink apron that says “I cook for my mom.” I’m embarrassed to say this,
but I’m in the stage where my mom still cooks for me!
Book #2
Every cupcake recipe you can imagine with color photos!
I think this prize pack could be the perfect gift for a mother or a grandmother. To enter to win all three, leave a comment telling me your favorite food memory with your mom, grandma, aunt, sister, or any family member. I’ll choose a winner at random and announce it next weekend!
I remember when my Aunt made waffles for my cousins and I once when i stayed over. She had this waffle iron that made the shapes of hearts in a radial design and you could tear them apart one at a time. Those were really some waffles made with love. 🙂
My favorite food memory is making Italian bow knot cookies at Christmas (I don't know how to spell what we call it!) with my mom every year. Now my daughter helps as well.
We used to call my grandmother every year as we were dipping the fried cookies in honey. It was bittersweet last Christmas since my grandmother passed away last August, but so special because it was the first year my daughter was able to be a really big help.
I imagine my grandmother making them with her mom and grandmother, and I imagine my daughter making them with her daughter. I know this is something that will live on in our family forever, and goes way beyond food.
Every Christmas my grandma would make gingerbread houses with my brother, sister, and me. We would do it all, from making the dough to decorating the whole house. Now I am an adult and my grandma is almost 90 and we still make them every year!
baking cookies with my grandparents during the holiday season is one of my favorite childhood memories!
My favorite memory with my mom is pretty recent: she set up her kid-sized table and chairs in the middle of her kitchen for my sons to sit at and decorate Christmas cookies with several colors of frosting, sprinkles, sugars, etc. They had so much fun and I know it's a favorite memory of theirs.
My mom doesn't cook. She never learned how to cook from my grandma! However, there are a few things she can cook, and they are things I don't eat! What I DO remember though, is when we made rice krispie treats for a halloween party when I was young, 2nd or 3rd grade maybe. I had to bring in a dessert and my mom helped me make them. We had this HUGE pot and filled it up with marshmallows and butter and then the cereal. We stirred it and then because we were rolling them into balls we just stuck our hands in the pot and rolled them into balls! My mom was also a single mother of two so we didn't get to spend as much time with her as we wanted, so it was special in more than one way for me.
What a great giveaway!
I always remember baking with my grandmother in her old, outdated kitchen. We made pies and all sorts of breads that I continue to enjoy making now in my adulthood.
I think my favorite thing we ever made were smoothies. I now love making them with my toddler. Although instead of the ice cream that my grandmother used to toss into them, I now toss in yogurt with lots of healthy greens and frozen fruits and veggies 🙂
My favorite cooking memory was when my mom was teaching a teenage me to cook cupcakes. Things were not going well. Attitudes might have been poor and cranky on my part and short on hers…
She leaned down to get the cupcake tins from the cupboard and as luck would have it, that was just when an egg rolled off the counter. Onto her head. And broke.
To this day she thinks I did it on purpose, lol. (For the record, I didn't!) But what a memory, right?!
My favorite memory from childhood was going to my grandmas house and it smelling like chicken stew and piebread. The best thing ever! She always made it for us when we arrived and it was so special. No one could replicate it just like hers.
I have a photo– my grandmother taught me so much!!!!
I always remember my Grandma's doughnuts. Every year on my birthday she would ask me if I wanted $10 or a batch of homemade doughnuts. I always picked the doughnuts!
During spring break of my freshman year, I told my grandma how much I missed home cooked food. The day I went back, she surprised me with four enormous jars of spaghetti sauce and a couple of bags of cooked noodles. I ate spaghetti the rest of the year when the cafeteria was closed, and loved all of it.
Making homemade spetzla with my mother and grandmother.
I always remember sitting in the living room at my grandparents with a five gallon bucket of blackeyed peas that we had picked at a neighbor's house. I don't know why I always remember that sitting there shelling peas with my grandparents.
All of my food memories come from cooking with my dad. To this day, every time I come home from college during Christmas break, we make my favorite dessert together–banana split cake! It always makes me so happy. And I love the time I get to spend with him.
I don't have a whole lot of vivid memories of my maternal Grandmother, but I do have one favourite one. She always made these wonderful round doughnuts and she kept them in a humungous recycled pickle jar with a white lid, on her tiny kitchen counter. The jar was just out of sight for us kids until we got near the kitchen sink. Since we knew that was where she kept it, we would always offer to help dry dishes after a Sunday lunch because that way we could see if she had made any doughnuts (as if a Sunday would go by and she wouldn't have any for us, but we never took it for granted). Those were the best doughnuts, slightly crispy on the outside and lovely and cakey on the inside. Mmmmm, wish I could have one now…
http://kim-thelunchbox.blogspot.com/
My favorite memory of cooking with my grandmother was helping her decorate a cake for my little sister each year for her birthday!
I always loved making cookies with my grandmother. Still do. She has some original ways of making the most amazing cookies and I can never replicate them. I think they need grandma love to taste as good. 🙂
Every Christmas my mom, grandmother and sister all sit down together to tear up the bread needed for stuffing the turkey. It's such a good time because we all talk and have a laugh together and catch up because we don't get to see each other as often as we like. 🙂
My favourite memory is sitting down with my Gran, Grandpa and cousin to eat bannock dipped in maple syrup. Gran made the best bannock and I wish I knew her recipe. She was an amazing woman, and I miss her so much.
My favorite food memory is making cookie with my grandmother (a teacher) and her insisting that we needed to halve the recipe so I could work on fractions. It was the most tortuous route to chocolate chip cookies I have ever traveled!
I had a cooking grandma and a non-cooking experimenting grandma. You never knew what the non-cooking one would combine and call food. One item sticks out more than anything and that was a pinto bean cake that she had dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day.
My Great Grandma is the one that actually taught me all the basics of cooking. I remember getting so excited when I would go over and the flour container would already be out on the container because that meant we were going to cook. I wouldn't know what but I knew that we would be cooking that day. I still make Chicken and Dumplings just the way that she did.
My favorite memory is when my mom taught me to make homemade chicken and noodles. Although it was our favorite meal, Mom didn't make it often. When I mastered it, she and Dad both were so proud that I could carry on that family tradition. I haven't seen them in over a year but they're coming to visit this week…and of course I'll be rolling noodles by hand, and trying to make them extra thin, just the way my Dad likes them.
Im mexican, both grandmothers mexican also, the most delicious and authentic mexican food is cooking in clay pots, thats what I learned from my grandmas, but I also have a german side: my grandpa´s family emigrated in the 20´s to Mexico and we celebrate Christmas "German style".
My grandaunt taught me how to bake all the cookies you can imagine, I can close my eyes and I "smell" the cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, clove, lemon, honey, absolutely heavenly! I love baking because of her; rye bread with caraway is a must on Christmas too.
Thanks for the opportunity of sharing with you my special memories 🙂
bgebauer71@hotmail.com
@brunhi_g
My favorite memory is actually with my Husband's Grandmother. When I first began dating my husband we would frequently have dinner at his Grandmother's home. She loved to cook especially Mexican food. For my entire life taco shells came out of a box. Pat made the best taco shells and I remember standing in her kitchen watching her fry up some taco shells. She used an old cast iron skillet and her fingers to shape them! I know right? Fingers…she was a tough lady and sadly we lost her to breast cancer a few years ago. My husband now carries on the taco shell tradition but he uses a fork instead of his fingers to shape them.
My favorite food memory would have to with my Great Grandmother. Every time we would go visit my Sister and I would run to the kitchen and start making oatmeal raisin cookies. It got to the point where we didn't even need the recipe anymore and knew where all the ingredients could be found in the house. I still remember the smell of her aprons and kitchen towels as well as the cow cookie jar that held all those yummy treats.
Melissa V
firegirl_429@yahoo.com
My favorite food memory will have to be making my Grandma's sugar cookies for Christmas every year. She always let me cut out the little Santas, Christmas trees, and candy canes. 🙂 Such great memories.
My favorite memory helping my Mammaw make her "everyday cake" which was a basic pound cake with no glaze or icing. She used to let me add egg after egg because I thought cracking them was so fun!
I was raised by a single mom and we lived with my grandma for most of my childhood. Whenever my mom would go out for the evening with friends or a work event my grandma would have what she called "Grandma and Haily night". She would set the table really nice (with her real dishes) and light candles and would make me a special dinner. It was usually steak or lamb chops, always mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. And to drink she always made me fresh squeezed OJ.
When I was busy being an obnoxious teenager, I got my grammom to teach me how to make chrusciki, a Polish fried cookie that only appears at Christmas and Easter. My mom, my grammom, my grandfather and I all made them, twice a year after that.
Possibly the only time my mom and I were in the same room without contention for years.
I always remember making divinity with my mom at Christmas time. I learned a lot bout what stiff peaks look like and how much humidity makes a difference!
My favorite food memory is making ice cream with my great grandparents, "Big Mama" and "TaTa". We usually made strawberry or peach or sometimes blackberry depending on what was in season. Big Mama would make the custard and TaTa would clean and slice the fruit. I sat at the kitchen table and drank a Pepsi (forbidden in my parents' house) while I watched them. Then TaTa would get out the ice cream churn and fill it with rock salt and ice and Big Mama would pour the custard into the drum. We all took turns turning the crank. It was the most incredible ice cream ever. I still can't stand the weird taste and texture of ice cream made with gums and thickeners. Big Mama and TaTa were endlessly fascinating to me and they let me drink Pepsi so they were rock stars in my book. I have their twig rocking chair in my kitchen. It gives me the warm fuzzies every time I see it.
My grandma grew up in a poor family and thus knew how to make food stretch. Her culinary skills, then, encompassed things like meatloaf and sauerkraut that my sister and I weren't especially fond of. But every Christmas, she'd bake cookies with us, starting early in the morning by making the dough and letting it chill while we played (and usually made a mess for her to clean up!) Then we'd roll out the dough and break out the cookie cutters. While they baked, we would make homemade frosting and mix food coloring to get just the right hues. After the cookies cooled, we'd decorate away. As my grandma got older and couldn't assist us with our cookie tradition, my sister and I always made sure to whip up a batch and bring some over 🙂
My grammie used to throw tea parties for my sister and I when we would visit her and my grandfather in Wisconsin. She had a beautiful old silver tea set that she would put out for the occasion, and we would sit and talk for hours over homemade sweets and drinks. She died while we were still pretty young, but passed down the tea set and a handwritten recipe book to us as a reminder of all of the special times we spent together. Now, as young adults, my sister and I bake together using the recipe book and sit down for our own tea parties with the special tea set. I can't wait to have children of my own so I can pass down the tradition with them.
Love baking and eating Nana's thumbprint cookies
You guys are amazing! Loved reading all of these today! Thank you.
Every Christmas, my mom, grandma and I would make Christmas cookies, from an old Polish recipe that was my great-grandmother's. They are cut out cookies that are made with anise, so they have a faint licorice flavor, then we'd ice them with a powdered sugar glaze and decorate. My mom had one of her grandmother's big mixing bowls and wooden spoon, which are the perfect size to make the big batch of dough.
Many years later, my grandma is gone now, but my mom and I still make those cookies every year, with my own daughter, and still using my great grandma's bowl and spoon.
My family is traditionally Polish in origin, but my favorite memory stems from an entirely different kind of southern cooking.
My favorite memory is making home made fried chicken and belgian waffles with my neighbor/second grandmother. She used to invite my sister and I over to her house and we would spend the day rubbing down the pieces of chicken with olive oil and fat with some bread crumbs then frying them each.
This usually involved more tasting than cooking as frying some home made chicken can make anyone hungry. But what made it my favorite memory is that we genuinely enjoyed doing it together. My own grandmother lives in AL and is too old to cook. This neighbor, Ms. Jean became my step in grandmother and even though we came from completely different backgrounds, it worked.
After a few hours of fried chicken, we'd make the belgian waffles. There was a lot of flour throwing, batter splattering, and clean up. Ms. Jean had a spatula to flatten the waffles, but she didn't use a machine. We would eat them hot and fresh with strawberries and rasberry preserves that came right out of her back yard! It was delicious.
Unfortunately, Ms. Jean passed away six weeks ago from a stroke related to a life long illness. However, she had a long, happy life and we still carry her recipes with us. I look forward to mentoring someone else in cooking just like she did for me.
My favorite memory… Cooking Thanksgiving dinner with my grandmother. It is two days of absolute chaos!
My great-grandmother used to always cook breakfast when we stayed over, and then in the afternoon she'd be so tired and rock herself into a nap in her rocking chair
One of my favorite memories of cooking with my mom was an Italian dinner. We were broiling garlic bread and one started on fire. Without missing a beat, we blew the fire out and put new garlic bread in the oven as if nothing happened.
my favorite food memory with my mom would be christmas sugar cookies. It's an old recipe that tastes awesome. we would make 2 batches and 1 whole batch would go with my father to work on the last day before the plant closed for the week. all the guys would always be there that day!! 1/2 of the 2nd batch would go to our teachers, neighbors and friends. Needless to say, usually over Christmas vacation we would make another batch for our family to enjoy!
My favorite food memory of my grandmother would be the huge sunday dinners at her house. all the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc would show up every sunday and we all had a great time. Not sure how my grandmother did all that but when you are 5 you don't realize all the work she did!
Growing up, my mom tried to teach me how to cook, but I had no interest in learning. Why learn when she did it all for me? Then I moved out on my own and lived 600 miles away. I had to learn quickly! I thought I would starve. I came home on a few long weekends and begged my mom to teach me how to make the family recipes. My great grandmother had passed down quite a few wonderful meals to my mom. She was the only one in a large family that knew how to make them, they weren't written down, it was all in her head. My great grandmother had passed away 15 years prior and my mom continued on the tradition of her German heritage recipes. I learned how to make everything from sauerbraten to roulade to apfelpfannkuchen to red cabbage and cabbage rolls. I feel honored that my mom finally taught me how to make the foods of my ancestors' past.
One of my favorite memories was baking cookies with my Great Grandmother. She was german and had the cookie recipes down so she would bake bunches of them and then all of the Great-Grandchildren would sit around the kitchen table and decorate them. Now I enjoy baking with my daughter. It's like we are making memories with everything we bake.
I remember being very young and helping my dad make his famous chocolate chip cookies and struggling to stir the giant bowl full of chips and walnuts! LOVED those cookies!
My mom made some mean fudge. And brownies. But I remember her most for her non-cooking. 🙂 It has forced me to learn a lot on my own…but that isn't necessarily a bad thing! (Not everyone can cook! 🙂 )
My favorite memory is watching my grandmother make vegetable soup. She had her own garden and canned, so making vegetable soup was recovering numerous jars from various hideaways around her small house and mixing them into a large pot. The mystery of canning was fascinating to me then, and still is now. Her vegetable soup remains my favorite food. Unfortunately, she now has Alzheimer's and must live in a nursing home, so my days of her vegetable soup are long gone.
My gremom's patience with me as we made "special" cupcakes together (as I remember them, just ordinary devil's food mix with a shortening-based vanilla icing), cooking down rhubarb, corn on the cob, fresh peas, all the good things from my grempop's garden. Chicken corn noodle soup, chicken pot pie, vienna sausages cooked right in the can (that was my grempop), brown butter on everything, Jiffy pop popcorn on the stove. They were wonderful grandparents to a forgotten kid, and I miss them every day. Gee, Mrs Q, thanks for digging up some memories (and some tears).
My mom is an amazing chef and baker, but we moved a lot, and so she never really had a consistent job. I do, however, remember hanging out in the kitchen of her catering business in Tennessee, and some of my fondest memories are of the house where my parents live now.
There were certain foods that we were allowed to help with and certain foods we were not. (She would say, "This food can handle a lot of hands" and we would be welcomed into the kitchen… Or she would say "This food is sensitive and we must be kind" and we would just watch from across the room.) When I went to college, I knew how to cook everything I wanted to know how- my favorite casseroles, cakes, and her famous chicken- and have been able to teach my lost-at-cooking roommates. Everything I make I remember her making and serving- it helps with the homesickness, and to make the adjustment to college away from home 🙂
My dad's side of the family is proud Norwegians, so every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas we have pounds and pounds of lefse (like a very thin tortilla made of mashed potatoes). The women in the family are responsible for making all the lefse for both holidays in early November, and then it's carefully packed and frozen for Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners. Now that I've moved away, I miss rolling and grilling all those round lefse with my mom, grandma, aunts, and cousins.