Food for thoughts

Fall is finally showing its golden presence.  The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and there’s a wee nip in the air.  This combination of goodness puts me in the mood for two things - cooking and changing out my closet.  I’m never really in the mood for changing out my closet but October is going to be a busy month for me, and if I don’t get it done this weekend it won’t get done until sometime in November.  And I really don’t want to be wearing white capris and cotton lawn blouses in November.  Fall is the time for denim, fleece and flannel even if South Mississippi temperatures still hover around 80 until Christmas.  Fall is fall, by golly, and I plan to dress like it even if I have to carry a handkerchief to dab the dew off my forehead.

When it comes to cooking, though, I’m not as seasonal.  I cook the same foods year round with the exception of dressing at Thanksgiving.  That’s the one time in the year I cook dressing since I only know how to prepare it for 25 people instead of just four.  But since there is a snap in the breeze today I decided to stay with a fall feel and throw together a pot of chili. 

I’m more of a throw-it-all-in-one-pot cook anyway.  Soup, stews, chili, spaghetti sauce, and dried beans are my specialties.  Cook it one pot, eat it in a bowl.  That’s how my children are going to remember my cooking when they are my age.  My children are going to write about me one day and say, “Gee, I sure do miss mom’s beef stew; meat, potatoes, and vegetables all there together in one bowl.  Mmm boy, that was some good cookin’!” 

While my chili was simmering I had a flashback of my mother’s cooking.  She was not a one pot cook.  She cooked in many pots and served multiple dishes with each meal.  We never just had spaghetti.  We would have spaghetti and a vegetable or two and fried chicken and maybe even potato salad.  I never said she was a healthy cook.  Her food was flavorful, comforting, and inviting but rarely was it healthy.  The meal I was thinking of this morning was a typical Sunday lunch of roast beef, baked broccoli and cheese, mushrooms sautéed in butter, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and/or green beans, cucumber and tomatoes in Italian dressing, U-Bake rolls and dessert.  

As good as her meals were her desserts were even better.  Mama rarely made one of anything.  She didn’t make one pie she made four.  She might make one cake but it was as large as two.  I remember coming home from school one day and the entire kitchen table (and it was a big table) was covered entirely with cinnamon rolls.  She was on a cinnamon roll kick that year.  The same can be said of her dalliances in pecan tassies, cupcakes, Rice Krispy treats, and brownies. 

I do so much miss my mother’s cooking.  I miss her, of course, but I’ve missed her cooking for much longer.  She stopped cooking after her bout with West Nile in 2005.  That dreadful disease zapped her of her energy and her memory.  One little mosquito took it all away.  

I may be a one pot cook but I try to put as much love into cooking as Mama put into hers.  Maybe that is why it tasted so good.  She truly enjoyed cooking it and she truly loved to see her family enjoy it.  Now if only I could put as much love into changing out my closet I might get the job done before bedtime.  Nah, I doubt it.