I am not a foodie, let me make that point right up front. TW and my job have done an excellent job of allowing me to get a fairly respectable score on foodie tests but I am really NOT a foodie. What I am though, is someone who has learned to find memories through food and that is something that I was never able to do before.
I’ve asked a million foodie type questions in my life and I’ve encourage thousand upon thousand of people to connect their memories to food and address emotional eating issues but as many have noticed, “Denise rarely answers her own questions.” It’s true, I don’t. And in the case of food and memories questions, it is generally because I didn’t have any decent answers.
But now, I can read a book like Garlic & Sapphires, (which I truly enjoyed, except for the ending), and not say “huh?” And I can read a really good book, like The Language of Baklava and almost relate! Well ok, maybe relate isn’t the right word.
I can read these passages about family dinners and father’s cooking and do more than see a hazy memory that brings nothing more than a shrug followed by the “what’s the big deal? People are weird. (That is generally what I’ve done when reading these types of books and message board posts, too!). I can now think back to Plain Grandma and Grandma-Grandma in the kitchen bickering back and forth while making Beef n Noodles and I see what the big deal is. I can immediately get the giggles when I think about me and my brother going around for hours on end saying “pork chops and applesauce†in poor imitation of that Brady Bunch boy every time my mother told us we were having pork chops for dinner. I can smile and chuckle at the memory of my mother making fried apples for us after seeing the episode of Family Affair where Mr. French made these while trapped in a blizzard (the episode is called Marooned).
I may not be able to pull up long rambling memories of exactly what people ordered at a particular restaurant 15 years ago, like TW and her family can, but I do have some very good family food memories!
And by the way, The Language of Baklava brought back more than just family food memories. It reminded me of the time I was on a children’s television show with my brother and friends. That Happy Raine memory just came tumbling back right there in the first chapter of Diana Abu-Jaber’s book. And I enjoyed it, almost as much as the family and food memories.
Pst, I’m not really a Debonair Diner, as suggested by the Foodie Quiz, but I do a good job of playing one on the internet! 😉