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November 15, 2010

My Current 3 Fave Things! Giveaway!

Here are the current three things that have CHANGED MY LIFE.

1. Coconut Oil. I LOOOOOVE this stuff!! My dear friend introduced me to this stuff and now I’m totally hooked.  If you’ve hung out with me recently, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard me rave about the stuff. It’s like butter meets-coconut- meets olive oil. The coconut doesn’t smack you in the face; it gently mingles with your taste buds, leaving you with a subtle coconut vibe. I’ve seriously had it on toast every morning for the past 3 months!! It’s fantastic on waffles. Glorious on pancakes. Amazing on hot popcorn with salt & sugar on top. Fun in your oatmeal!  It’s a good fat. Soo much better for you than butter! I can’t tell you how often I spend my entire commute to work thinking about it….If you ever find yourself in a store craving some, make sure you by the extra virgin stuff! The refined version doesn’t taste like much.

2. J.R. Watkins Lemon Lotion. Let me start off by saying that I HATE LOTION. I can’t be bothered to add another step to my getting ready routine. It never dawns on me to put lotion on. BUT! I started putting this lotion on my hands every night before bed and I lay there huffing my fingers. Imagine smearing yourself with the scent of lemon cake with sugary creamy frosting. It’s ridiculously good and I think it’s the reason why I have sweet dreams. This stuff has converted me into a hand cream lotion wearer! It’s not only good on the skin, but it’s a total attitude adjustment. I immediately feel better after its scent intoxicates me. Sometimes I put some on at work when I’m feeling especially stressed. Totally does the trick.

3. A To-Go Tumbler! (BPA Free) I can’t tell you how many times have I’ve put- DRINK MORE WATER on my New Year’s resolution list! This sucker helps me get my 64oz. on the daily.  It’s insulated so it keeps my water cold and never sweats when I’ve filled it up with ice cubes. It’s portable and totally fits in my car’s cup holder!  Whenever it’s running low on liquid, I immediately fill it up. Big points for a nice thick straw & a see-thru container. The best part is that there’s a ridge on the bottom of the straw that prevents it from coming out all the way. Kid proofing!  I own two of them so there’s no excuse to not always have one with me.

Guess what?!! I have all three of these items packed up for a lucky reader! It’s my first giveaway and I’m totally excited!

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me:

One of your favorite food memories!

A winner will be picked at random a week from today!!

Good luck!

  • Käthe

    I tell people this one all the time:

    I flipped an entire Belle Helene crepe onto my lap at a tiny cafe table when I cut into the tableless edge of it.

    Napkin in the lap, y’all! Not a bit spilled onto my lap; I flipped it back onto the plate and went right back to eating.

  • mjb

    I want that tumbler! My favorite food related memory is getting to pick our birthday meals, breakfast lunch and dinner. But second to that is probably the awesome breakfasts my dad would make us 4 out of 5 days of the week.

  • Sarah

    When I was little, my grandparents owned a steakhouse. I loved going there and having the waitresses bring in the lazy-Susan packed with fixings for the baked potato. They let me have as much as I want. Steak and baked potatoes are still among my favorite meals.

  • Julie (Bananas for Bourbon)

    My favorite food memory will always be my family’s Christmas breakfast tradition: blueberry pancakes and chicken apple sausage after the presents were opened.

  • Brittany

    Wow, what an awesome giveaway! I too obsess over coconut oil, but I can never be bothered to pay for extra-virgin.
    One of my favorite food memories is pulling homemade candy with my mom when I was younger. Have you ever done it? It’s extremely HOT and she always made us do it around Christmas time as if it was a tradition…and my brothers and I hated it because it burned our hands.
    Looking back now, I think it’s kind of funny.

  • Maria

    Baking cinnamon rolls with my dad!

  • Sarah DK

    One of my favorite food memories would have to be learning how to make my first ( and still sought after) apple pie in home-ec class in 8th grade. I still have the very rumpled and dirty sheet of paper with the original recipe.

  • Erica

    It is ironic that you are giving away coconut oil! I was looking at several food blogs this past weekend, and I noticed several recipes that contained coconut oil, and I was wondering what it tasted like:) I love discovering new ingredients. I just discovered how beneficial wheat germ and oat bran are and I am trying to find ways to incorporate it into recipes. Where can you buy coconut oil?

    One of my favorite food memories was helping my mom prepare the Hors d’ oeurve tray each Thanksgiving. My mom has served pineapple cream cheese stuffed celery, jarred spiced apple rings, black olives and bread and butter pickles for appetizers on Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. I have no idea where she came up with this combination:)

    Thanks for offering this giveaway!

  • Heather Hilferty

    All three look awesome!! i have been wanting one of the reusuable cups AND looove lemon scent!

  • Rhi

    My favorite food memory is eating Nicoise salad and drinking Rose’ in Nice with my husband.

  • amy

    ive been dying to try coconut oil for-e-ver! and that tumbler would also work brilliantly as a breakfast smoothie transporter! and i already use that hand lotion, and it feels and smells just like lightly whipped lemon frosting!

    i love love love breakfast on christmas morning. everything about it is just magical! you are with your family, the house is decorated and warm and there’s a fire in the fireplace, you’re about to open presents, christmas music is playing…and even though its early morning, the spread is kindof a breakfast/brunch hybrid – christmas eve dinner leftovers as sandwich fixins, egg casserole, fruit salad, and coffee of course. i cant wait!!

  • Nicole

    Coconut oil directly on toast? I must give that one a try.

    My favorite food memory is picking herbs from my Oma’s garden before she made a big dinner.

  • Dawn Marie

    My favorite food memory just occurred. My husband took me to Paris to celebrate my 40th birthday. It was my first time going. My birthday night we sat at an outdoor cafe drinking hot chocolate and cappuccino while feasting on the best cheese and bread plate. So stereotypical yes, but that has been my vision for years and to do it with the love of my life and ringing in a birthday was priceless.

  • Michelle

    What a sweet giveaway! I love coconut oil and I’ve been dying to get one of those tumblers.

    One of my favorite food memories would have to be baking christmas cookies each year with my mom and sister. Eventually we were each old enough to invite a friend over so it was usually five crazy women baking in one kitchen! I can’t wait to someday do the same with my children (let’s just hope I have girls, haha j/k).

  • carly

    this is a really cute idea for a giveaway. one of my recent favorite food memories is eating bbq at ok joes in kansas city with some of my besties. i also loved baking spritz cookies with my ma around the holidays when i was a kid. i need to get a cookie press!

  • kim

    One of so many…
    One of them is from my time on the Black Sea in Russia. 1995. We have so much here in America, this community of people did not. Yet, they laid out this amazing spread of local cuisine for 10 American teenagers to parttake of. So gracious!

  • Deon

    OMGosh, I want that Tumbler!!!
    My favorite food moment was cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner for my new family. I had just got married and I honestly cook everyday for my husband, then and now… I know right? Shame! Well, when we got married he was not a vegetarian and therefore lost a lot of weight eating my veggie cooking. So when his Mother saw him that Holiday she flipped out and blamed me for her son looking so “unhealthy”. So that Thanksgiving I went through at LEAST 8 sticks of butter just to prove to her that I could bring the fat… I must say Julia Child is so right… EVERYTHING taste better with BUTTER.
    This Thanksgiving dinner is at our house again, I cant wait to show off all the things that I have learned from your blog. (I hope sucking up gets me some points)

    Cheers,
    kdRS,
    http://kdrsblogs.blogspot.com

  • Lindsay

    I love the idea behind this giveaway. Very sweet. My favorite food memory is also my oldest food memory and a tradition that I carry on to this day. Every Christmas Eve morning my mom would get up early to bake these gigantic sticky cinammon rolls that we’d eat side by side at the kitchen island. Hot cocoa in a mug for me and tea in a mug for her. My father and brother were always less excited about the holiday then me and so we’d have the kitchen to ourselves and I’d have my mom’s undivided attention as I anxiously chattered on about Santa’s arrival the following day.

  • RH

    Tough call, but during my first trip to San Francisco I made a bee-line for Chinatown and embarked upon my first ever tea tasting. Delicious, educational, and humbling. Loved it!

  • heather

    Learning to make my mom’s famous kringle for the first time, and then receiving a hand-written copy of the recipe for Christmas. Two excellent food moments.

    Cheers,

    *Heather*

  • Yazmena

    My favorite food memory involves my Grandpoppy and my dad. Every year my dad would pack up the entire family into our van and drive us to Las Vegas where we would help Grandpoppy harvest apricots. We always would gorge ourselves on the fruit staining our clothes with the juices and once we had our fill we would begin the process of making jam. I loved skimming the foam off the top of the pot and placing it into a bowl. Once the bowl was full of foam, we would take it outside back to the apricot tree and pour it on the roots so it could have a “taste” and continue to have tons of fruit every year.

  • jenifer

    well you know i have to enter!

    my fave food memory is actually making croissant rolls with my mom at thanksgiving & christmas. we’d make the dough, roll it out, cut it with pizza cutters into triangles & spread butter all over them. YUM.

  • bridget

    those are fun things.

    my fave food memory is my dad making breakfast. he makes great banana french toast.

    and i use coconut oil all over my body- do you know you can do that with it too? makes a great lotion.

  • Melinda

    Mmm love coconut oil!! I’ve always hated using hand lotion, too! So slimy.

    My favorite food memory is having buttered rye toast at my pap’s house. It was the only time I got to have it, and it was such a treat. He’s not around anymore, so I never get to have any rye toast at their house anymore..so any time I’m getting bread (which isn’t often), I make sure I get a bit of rye to satisfy that craving.

  • etsy love | frecklewonder

    […] SHUTTERBEAN GIVEAWAY. tracy is generously offering up 3 of her current faves in her first ever blog giveaway! head on over and comment with one of your favorite food memories and you’ll be entered into the drawing! […]

  • Kara

    My grandparents lived in the country and grew a lot of their own food. I remember going up to help pick raspberries and strawberies and taking breaks to hid in their pantry, gazing at the rows of canned preserves. My grandpa’s dilly beans were the best!

  • bhs

    a cliche perhaps, but licking brownie batter from a wooden spoon is tops

  • Michelle

    My mom’s lasagna – specifically picking off bites from the crusty, bubbled cheesey topping. Made far worse by the fact that my three brothers also did this. Lasagnas would arrive at the dinner table sadly disfigured. I still can’t make a lasagna taste as good as mom’s.

  • jen

    i love coconut oil too! it’s been my savior since baby decided to have a dairy intolerance. love the cream and tumbler too, yay for first giveaways!

  • Becky

    Oh! pick me pick me! A recent favorite food memory is chasing down the kogi korean taco truck in LA and trying to eat a bit of everything with a huge group camped out on a random lawn while the bewildered cops drove by, trying to figure it all out.

  • Betsy

    Luv your website and enjoy all things shutterbean! Coconut oil, I’ve been considering using it. My friend Vicki feels the same way you do. She can’t ever get enough of it. I’ve considered buying some, good to hear the xtra virgin is the way to go.

    My favorite food moment is my first attempt to make spun sugar (15 year old teenage) for my 4-H foreign foods project. I set my sights high, I planned to win a grand slam at our county fair in Nebraska and I knew what would do the trick -Croquembouche .
    A traditional cake for weddings and christenings . Croquembouche comes from the French “croquant” meaning crackling and “bouche” for mouth. Thus croquembouche refers to the crackling in your mouth when eating this traditional dessert.
    The croquembouche is often the dessert at a French wedding or christening. It features profiteroles (small creampuffs). Profiteroles are filled with pastry cream (creme patissiere) and held together with a delicate cobweb of caramel to form a breathtaking centerpiece.
    The basic process is to prepare caramel syrup, coat the puffs with some of the syrup and then arrange them to form a pyramid. It is then decorated with “angel hair” spun from the same caramel syrup.

    As a 9 yr old I learned to make cream puffs w/ my mother, so making those was a cinch. Working w/extemely hot molten sugar was the issue. Imagine my delight and confidence the first time, at 15 to master spun sugar- aka “angel hair” carmel threads/strands of sugar! I have the photos of me transporting my Croquemboche – fifteen miles to deliver the finished masterpiece for competition. And I did win my grand slam that year.

  • Vanilja

    Ooh, coconut oil. I did heard a rumour that the *perfect* popcorn is made with that…

    But a memory… When I was little I baked often with my mom. And four-year-old me realized that there was always similar things used in baking – eggs, flour, sugar… just the amounts changed. So I made up my own cake recipe with those ingredients which mom – very reluctantly – approved and we tried it out.

    Yeah, it really was a truly awful cake, but it got me hooked on being experimental in everything. I love knowing that little things like that can have some effect on life.

  • carly

    my mom and grandma were the cooks in my house, not my grandfather. so one day when I was home with him, he decided to make us stovetop kraft mac and cheese. upon tasting it, he decided it wasn’t cheesy enough and melted gobs more cheddar in there. That sooo impressed eight year old me who was already working on a pretty fierce cheese addiction. I have had many fine mac and cheeses since, but to this day, no mac and cheese, boxed, gourmet, baked, homemade, has ever tasted as good as the memory of that one.

  • mimi

    My favorite food memory at the moment is my dad recently teaching me the top secret recipe for our family’s magic chicken soup. I’m the fourth generation to get this recipe and I only received it after a scolding from both my father and grandmother for attempting to make it (without a recipe) for the first time without notifying them first. I’ve been eating this soup since as long as i can remember, I even dream about it when I’m away at school. It’s got magic healing powers, I swear!

  • Sarah @ Daily Nibbles

    Oooh, love your three favorites! One of my favorite food memories happened just this week. I’m splitting my first CSA this winter with my friend Rachel. After a busy day, full of work and classes, I went over to Rachel’s and was immediately greeted by a table FULL of fresh fruits and vegetables. I’m more into baking, which is often following a recipe, so it was cool to cook dinner by just throwing together the fresh ingredients at hand.

  • Susanne

    I would have to say waking up early with my Grandmother so that I could watch her (and chat with her). She would make the full breakfast…. eggs, bacon, muffins and fresh squeezed juice.

  • stacy

    Thanks for the givaway- very kind of you! My favorite food memory would have to be the one that I made last week as my 20 month old daughter and I baked Martha Stewart’s oatmeral applesauce cookies together. (from her COOKIES book, which is great). It was out first baking experience together, and it just sort of melted my heart to have her sitting there with me, watching me in awe, and sticking her tiny finget in to lick the bowl. I really want to have her help me in the kitchen a lot as she grows, and I hope she love to bake and cook as much as I do. I figure if we do it together it will get her interested. She loved it, I loved it and the cookies turned out delish.

  • Eliz

    My favorite food memory is eating the first few eggs our backyard chickens laid! My husband and I were nervous about eating them, but they were so delicious.

  • Amanda Berg

    One of my favorite food memories was pouring fresh chocolates into a cup of steamed milk at a little cafe in Belgium. Talk about FRESH hot chocolate. MmMm.

  • anne

    Oh, golly, this is a great giveaway. My favorite food memories are mostly about my grandmother. We’d make trek from Virginia to Illinois once a year, and I’d hang out with her in the kitchen and listen to her tell stories and make angel food cake with bitter chocolate frosting, caramel dip, and meringues. And she’d slip me caramel bonbons from Fannie Mae candies, which are legendary in our family (and sadly, no longer in production!). But I can still taste them when I think of her.

  • Rachel

    Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Pick me, lemon and coconut are my FAVORITE. Ok enough begging.

    My best friend and I were determined to recreate zucchini-chocolate-chip (more emphasis on the chocolate, less on the zucchini) muffins while studying abroad, and we went to great lengths to convert our recipe to metric measurements and find all the necessary ingredients. She whipped up the batter, and I was simply responsible for the cinnamon sugar topping. We popped them in the oven, set out our butter to soften, and when they were ready, split the first ones open and popped them in our mouths….

    … to discover a HORRIBLE SALTY DISGUSTING TASTE. Literally. Horrendous. I, of course, had lovingly covered our perfect zucchini and chocolate chip muffins in a cinnamon-SALT topping. Cutting the muffin tops off (the horror…) did nothing, since the salt had managed to permeate its way to the center. We had to throw them all out.

  • Laura P

    One of my favorite food memories is having mexican style pizza (black bean and salsa sauce with nacho-esque toppings) after one of my first trips to the Atlantic ocean. I make this pizza at home quite often and it always brings me back to the sunny seashore.

  • Cassie

    the meal I shared with my fiance just before he proposed. I didn’t know what was coming, but remember in the moment thinking how lovely it was and how the food, rich and warm, seemed to mirror our moods. It was intimate and lucky and I’ll never forget it.

  • Linda Tolbert

    Fun! I love learning people’s favorites. Now, for my favorite food memory: Every Christmas Eve we get together at my grandma’s house as she prepares us a traditional Mexican feast, complete with THE BEST tomales in the world. Even though she passed away this year, we’ll still continue the tradition! She made food memorable.

  • annie

    It seems like so many of my favorite memories are related to food in some way, but one of my favorite food memories was eating the banana pudding that my grandmother would always make when we were coming over. She wasn’t what you would call a good cook– for instance, the biscuits that she would make seemed to grow in my mouth as I tried to chew them, but there were a few dishes that she made that were just delightful. Her banana pudding was one of those recipes. Lots of times, all I have to do is smell a banana and I automatically remember sitting around her big round table and being happy to be eating there.

  • Heather

    My Mom’s Christmas shortbread – thin, gently crisped, and melt in your mouth. And made using a specific set of my Grandmother’s cookie cutters, without which these cookies would not be the same. It’s the one thing … the only thing … I ask my Mom to make each year.

    And to honour my Dad, too, I remember the fun of roasting marshmallows in winter with forks over the burner of our propane stove until Dad had the brilliant idea to customize Mom’s hand-mixer which then rotated the marshmallows over the burner, roasting them to browned perfection. My Dad was brilliant and very fun.

  • Claire

    Growing up my grandma always made pineapple upside down cake, it always looked and tasted beautiful. One day my dad and I decided to make her a pineapple upside down cake which somehow became a pineapple right-side-up cake. The cake wasn’t nearly as beautiful as my grandma’s but it was still pretty delicious and my grandma appreciated our efforts.

  • Lynn

    Making homemade donuts with my whole (extended) family last summer. The oldest was Grandma at 97 and the youngest was 2 years old. It was a blast and the donuts were devine!

  • Charity

    One of my favorite food memories is of my mom making her pan de sal (bread). She would get up really early in the morning to start the process. By dinner time we had fresh bread. She only made this at Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it was always a real treat.

  • gokche

    i eat mom’s brownie..everytime feels happy 🙂

  • Lana

    I just wanted to comment… even though I’ve got coconut oil in my pantry! A recent favourite food memory is making Alden’s first pizza where he could eat the “cheese” and we could all feel like we were eating a real pizza and not worry about allergies.

    Or any night of the week when we’re cookin’ and the little dude drags a chair in saying “helper, helper” and scrambles up to the counter to “cook”. Yeah, that’s my favourite.

  • Allison

    Every year at Christmas my mom (and my grandmother and aunts) all make spritz cookies. I have memories of twisting our cookie press and decorating all of the cookies with all kinds of sprinkles. They are the best!

  • amanda

    My favorite food memory is one that I am making now… My husband and I have two baby boys, Asher 19 months and Jude 4 months, and every Saturday hubs lets me sleep in and he watched football with the boys and when I get up I make Pumpkin Spice Pancakes from Trader Joes (hubs’ and Asher’s fave) sunny side up eggs with lots of hot sauce (my fave) and lots of coffee and we all hang out together. This happens every. single. Satruday. and its my favorite time of the week and the best food memory I have as of late and I have a feeling it will be for a long long time 🙂

  • GD Blogger

    My favorite food memory is baking cookies with my mom when I was a child. I remember sitting on the countertop helping her mix ingredients and trying to steal batter from the bowl!

    gdblogger1 at gmail dot com

  • Helen

    awesome giveaway!!!!

    favorite food memory is a recent one. my husband, son + i went to orlando at the end of september. along with the whole disney thang we were sure not gonna miss harry potter land! i was most looking forward to trying butterbeer. i had built it up so much in my head though, i was sure i’d be disappointed. luckily, i wasn’t! i opted for the frozen version, which hit the spot on a hot, muggy florida day. it tasted like cream soda on crack…it was sweet, but not overly so, and was topped with vanilla butterscotch cream. i savored every sip and didn’t want it to end. i can’t think of a time i anticipated something sooo much and wasn’t let down. i can’t believe orlando is the only place in the world; i daydream about it quite a lot! will attempt to recreate at home, but know it won’t be the same!!!

    i guess that was a beverage memory; hope it still counts 😉

  • regan

    I just wrote about how Little Debbie snack cakes take me back to childhood. They aren’t the fanciest desserts out there but I swear I’m 6 years old again when I eat them.

    If I win, I would like you to personally deliver my prize.

  • Sammyw

    Cooking dinner for my husband our first month of marriage. Sweet memories!

  • Dana

    Thanks for the awesome giveaway! All of those treasures sound so fun! My favorite baking memories are from when I was a little girl. My mom and I ran an imaginary business called “rainbow bakery”. I would page the home phone, “answer” it, and take imaginary orders and we would bake them together. Seeing your post a couple days ago when you let cooper help you in the kitchen reminded me of it. You might end up with a bigger mess to clean, but the memories you’ll have to look back on make it all worth it! 🙂

  • Jessica

    I used to make mints with my mom at Christmas – rather unconventional to make mints, but they were so yummy!

  • laura parker

    Hmmm, the memory that jumps out at me is when we lived with my grandparents after our house burnt down when i was 5. My grandma would wake us up in the mornings and make us Quaker peaches and cream oatmeal before school! I can’t eat the stuff now, i could barely eat it then! But i loved the time i got to spend with her!

  • Michelle Smith

    A food memory….making home made pizza with my boyfriend once a month. We try to do different recipes each time, and have so much fun with our creations! xoxo

  • erica

    my favorite food memory is now when milo had his first cupcake! it was his birthday – frosting in his eyes and everything!

  • Ashleigh Moore

    My husband and I once cooked Indian food for twenty of our favorite people. It was so much fun! Then another time we had fondue night with a few friends and family for New Years Eve then we went out dancing. I can’t decide between those two.

  • Katie

    Making fudge with my mom and sister around the holidays. We have an incredibly finicky recipe that is ridiculously high maintenance and half the time it doesn’t turn out, but oh, when it does. It is so. good. And we have fun making it even when the result is a disaster only fit for ice cream topping.

  • Jennifer Newman Klesius

    I love reading all of your seggestions and tips! Both my husband and I are total foodies and love to cook too!

    One of my favorite food memories is actually not so much about the food. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I love the food, family, friends, and the feeling of the holiday season starting! Last year (2009) I got to spend my first Thanksgiving as a family of 4. I had my second son on November 18th 2009 (so, he will be 1 on Thursday). I had just gotten home from the hospital after having a c-section a couple days prior to Thanksgiving and by no means had the energy to cook a whole feast. So, my husband and I decided that we would order a Thanksgiving meal and share our first holiday at home as a family of 4. The food was nothing special but the memory of our first hoilday as our own complete little family of 4 made it perfect! We even put the in the baby in his bouncy chair on the table, so he could share with us!

    Well, I was going to post a picture but I couldn’t figure how. Anyway, Happy Holidays from our family to yours!!

    Jen

  • Erin

    I come from an Italian family and every year at Christmas we make ravioli’s for our Christmas dinner. We make the dough, filling, and ravioli’s all by hand. Add in some amazing meat sauce, meatballs and braciole and it’s a feast! It is a wonderful tradition and this year, my 19 month old son got to help! I feel blessed to be able to continue this tradition with my own family and hope to for years and years to come.

  • Rona Y

    My favourite food memory is of my 3rd birthday; we had chiffon cake with buttercream icing and toasted sliced almonds. It has always been my favourite cake, and whenever I have chiffon cake, I always think of my childhood.

  • Crystl

    One of my favorite food memories is when my first experiment with a new risotto recipe turned out scrumptiously, and a really good friend ate two helpings, despite having already eaten dinner.

  • Catherine T

    Mmmm – a steak the size of a coconut in Buenos Aires. Divine.

  • shenais

    ah- the blueberry pie that weighed so much it literally fell through its own crust- but it was so good! clearly, we had never made pies before.

  • Shannalee

    The food memory most recently on my mind is of last weekend, when I went to Nashville to surprise my boyfriend and instead he surprised me–with a homemade meal of spelt ravioli, homemade sauce, braciole and a big salad. He’d spent the previous night cooking for me, all while I thought he had no idea I was coming.

  • brooke

    favorite food memory….
    Id wake up early on the weekends when I was a kid (seriously like 8-9) and would make breakfast for my family while they slept. I’d pretend I was a host of a cooking show and would make pancakes and scrambled eggs .

  • Rachel

    ooh! I’m a fan of these things! I discovered coconut oil and butter recently as well and I’m really enjoying it.
    One of my favorite food memories is of visiting the kitchen for my grandmother’s catering business. I remember watching all the busy people cooking and scampering around. They were all very proud of the food they made and my grandmother’s leadership was pretty awe inspiring. The best part of each visit was sampling leftovers from various events and eating lunch with the kitchen staff. They would prepare a nice lunch and we would all sit around a big table in the front office area to eat together.

  • Katie

    I’m very serious about my food, eating and cooking. 🙂 And I mean serious in a totally obsessive love all foods kind of way! My favorite food memory to date is a meal my family ate in San Diego. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant or what I ordered. It was delicious, the bread was divine and it was our last night on vacation. It was so fun and so delicious — the good company and good food were perfect!

  • Shaleen

    You wouldn’t think that a food memory would be so difficult to narrow down. I have so many having had the privilege of growing up with a mom who can C to the O to the O to the K cook! But if I read the directions correctly I have to come up with one memory. The memory I would have to choose is our annual tradition of picking up Hatch green chile and having it roasted. I grew up in NM so a kitchen without green chile is like a kitchen without a sink. We drive to Santa Fe each year and pick up a bushel and drive it back to Colorado to have roasted. The roasting process is like no other. It smells unbelievable and is a scent that brings me back to my childhood and having chile roasted with my parents. Now we bring our kids and they too are intoxicated by the smell. The smell carries with it all of the future recipes we will share throughout the year. Whether it is green chile burritos, huevos rancheros or just plain old chile chopped up with lots of garlic and salt to go on top of my cheesy scrambled eggs-I’m telling you the stuff is magical! It kicks up any dish a notch! I hope my kiddos can handle the spicy stuff soon so that they too can share in this amazing little fruit : )

  • Janet

    Ooh! Pick me! 🙂

    One of my fave food memories happened when I was about 10. My Mom took me and my sister on a little getaway to a hotel for her birthday, and we ordered breakfast in bed. The kids menu said “Two Friendly Dinosaur Pancakes,” but when the food showed up, there were actually THREE dinosaur pancakes. My Mom said, “maybe one of them wasn’t friendly,” and we laughed forever. Still do when we think about it, in fact.

    (Why do I feel like I’ve told this story in your comments before??)

  • Leah

    When I was a little girl, maybe 5 or so, I went camping with my family. I woke up, and I asked my Mom about the heavenly smell that I had never experienced before. She told me it was bacon – my grandmother was making breakfast. To this day, every time I smell bacon, I remember waking up that morning and that delicious smell!

  • Karen G

    My favorite memory is the entire family eating french dip sandwiches on xmas eve in the new Christmas pajamas that we open before dinner. Quite a site– but super cozy!

  • Kim

    My favorite food memory would be dinner at Vesta Dipping Grill in Denver, CO. It was our first trip together and first dinner of our vacation. Very special.

  • Carrie H

    My favorite food memory is going apple-picking in the fall with my parents when I was younger, and later helping dad make his homemade apple butter…..soooo yum!

  • Wendy

    Favorite food memory: juicing my first batch of wheatgrass that I grew myself. I felt proud of myself beacause it was so easy and so much cheaper than shots at the store.

  • holly

    on our last night in paris we went to some fancy restaurant and i ordered some pasta in cheese thing with sausage. note: i dont eat seafood, at all. so i get it my order. its a little different than i thought, but its in a cheese sauce, so all good. after 15 minutes of me chowing this down, the waiter comes and takes away what im eating [would never happen in the US] and puts down what i actually ordered. apparently i was eating scallops!!! let me tell you everyone at the table (family, friends, etc) went wild knowing id been chowing down on seafood which i have not eaten ever. i actually liked the original dish better than what i ordered and was given at the end!

    ha! 🙂

  • Sasha

    Several years ago my family had a vegetarian Thanksgiving at my stepdad’s suggestion. I’m the only vegetarian, but we all had a great time trying Tofurky for the first time and my parents thought it was as good as real turkey!

  • autumn

    I would LOVE this stuff!

    My favorite food memory is from when I was around 6 years old, my sister was 4 and we wanted cookies. Mom wouldn’t give us any so when she went outside to get the mail we locked all the doors so she couldn’t get in. We ate ALL the cookies and she was so mad. Looking back, it was horrible, but hilarious. I’ll probably pay for it with my future kids. Great.

  • Annie

    My favorite food memory would have to be the evening I had a very late night at work. It was a rough day, but when I arrived back home I found that my husband had baked me chocolate lava cakes! Now the guy loves to cook, but bake? And something that adventurous?! It was a wonderfully sweet gesture in so many ways.

  • Eliza

    Hmmm… one of my favorite food memories? How about two weeks ago when I discovered roasted broccoli for the first time? Life-changing, I tell you!

  • Kali Patton

    One of my favorite food memories is making enchiladas with my Ita (Grandmother). We made everything from scratch from sauce to tortilla. She was a self made fashionista with perfectly styled hair and painted nails even elbow deep in enchilada sauce. She rolled her tortillas in two even rolls and they always came out perfect circles. To this day mine still look like Texas, but I’m thankful for the recipe.

  • Vanessa

    My mom bakes me pumpkin pie every year for my birthday and it’s always my favorite smell to come home to

  • Dayanna

    My favourite food memory was baking christmas cookies for the whole family at grandma’s house growing up. My cousin and I would eat so much icing till we felt sick!! Such sweet fond memories.

    My current food memory is looking forward to fresh sticky buns on christmas morning!! Mmmmm num num YUMM!

    ?

  • rachelle.

    i would absolutely die for all three of these. i have heard a lot about coconut oil lately. i guess i should check it out. here’s to hoping. thanks!

  • lookwhaticando

    One of my favorite food memories is a Thanksgiving we had in our little apartment.
    It was just Memphis, Jason, Me and my Ma.
    It was so great.
    The food was amazing (Jason is a GREAT cook…used to be a chef) and it was just so nice not to have to go anywhere for a change.
    I can’t remember where my brother and his family were but they must have been doing there own thing.
    I just remember smiling a lot and having great conversations and watching my Ma play with my daughter all day 🙂

  • abi

    making candy with my mom and sisters every christmas.

  • Jennifer T

    My favorite food memory:
    8 years old, wearing oven mitts that are too big, watching as my Babcia makes her mother’s recipe for stew.
    Still my favorite winter dinner, it has soft orange carrots, warm yellow potatoes, and tender cuts of free range beef. The sauce is light and thinner then most stews. She taught me how to mix a little flour in a cup with the broth so that it would not be lumpy and how to stir in the right blend of herbs.
    I always consult her when trying a new recipe because she is the one who taught me how to cook.

  • Anne

    Hmm, that’s a tough one! One that I remember fondly was eating a picnic lunch from super fresh Amish-made bread and sandwich spreads out of the back of my parent’s station wagon when I was in elementary school. Really good food + unusual eating spot = perfection to this foodie girl (even at 8 years old!).

  • Debbie

    Love your blog. Great giveaways. One of my favorite food memories is my dad taking us out for pizza. We rarely went out for meals and it was a special treat. I suppose that’s one reason I fell in love with pizza early on.

  • angie (jujubefamily)

    first giveaway? I have to enter!

    favorite food memory… (too hard to choose) is eating breakfast sausages with scrambled eggs my dad cooked every (not EVERY ^ ^) saturday for the fam. especially before my soccer games in grade school. sometimes we would have to drive long to an away game and we would have to get an early start so he would pack up the breakfast– sausages, eggs, and toast, etc etc– and put it in the passenger seat and wait for me by the car with the engine going. it was his way of saying, “hurry! everything’s set but you are sooooo slooooooow~~.” he prided himself on being the soccer dad, the cheerleading dad and orchestra dad and always made sure I was full before any activity I took on.

    some years later, on a saturday, when driving me to my SAT’s at school (I was running late and a nervous wreck) he “saved time” by having my breakfast sausage, scrambled eggs, and toast ready for me on the passenger seat. I was driven to school eating my breakfast and listening to mozart (you know, to active my brain. LOL).

    needless to say, I am a pro when it comes to the art of eating in the car.

  • Rachel

    Making french toast with my mom. It’s still our go-to special occasion breakfast. 🙂

  • Jessica

    My favorite food memory is coming home after school to my grandma’s cooking! Soooo good! Nothing else compares to grandma’s cooking!

  • Lisa

    My favorite food memory is going over to my Nana’s on Sunday afternoons for family dinner when I was younger and smelling the aroma of roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy coming from the kitchen. Nothing tastes quite the same.

  • Julie

    One of my favorite food memories is probably only funny to me! Every Christmas morning my family would put our a spread of bagels and lox with all the fixings. I was about 7 or 8 an thought I was game to try it. The combo of fish and red onion was way to harsh for my juvenile palate and I hid it under the sofa. About a month later my mom confronted me with the moldy bagel. It was hard to deny it was me with that incriminating single bite mark!

  • Emily

    My number one ultimate food memory if I absolutely had to pick one would be helping my Nana peel potatoes for Sunday dinner when I was little and then gorging myself on mashed potatoes that afternoon.

  • caitlin

    taking a fresh apple pie to my friend in the hospital after she had a baby. 🙂

  • Melissa S.

    What a coincidence, this is my very first time applying for a giveaway. Never understood what blog giveaways were really all about, but coming across these tempting items made me want to find out.

    Anyways, my favorite food memory happened a couple of years ago when I was allowed to prepare the Thanksgiving turkey …it was magical. The fact that I was given such a task meant that my family had confidence in my cooking skills.

  • Denise

    One day when I was 7 or 8 years old, I was traumatically stung by a wasp right before dinnertime. Luckily, my mom had prepared my favorite comfort food that night… tuna noodle casserole. That meal was just what I needed that night. I will always carry that food memory with me.

  • Rosie

    Even though I’m almost always sick when I get to eat it, one of my favorite things is my mom’s lentil soup. Any memory with that soup is automatically good.

  • Anonymous (A.C.)

    My favorite memory I want to share is my dad making homemade croissants on holidays when we were little. It was quite a production from letting the yeast rise to making the buttery fluffy layers and he did it with such love! This year we learned about an illness he had and it makes us treasure all the times we still have with him even more.

  • AlyssaG

    one of my fav food memories is the first time i made tofu parmesan for the omni boyfriend. we both loved it so much and the boyfriend still talks about it to this day and how i ate my meal in 2 seconds flat.

  • blabs

    Favorite food memory? This one is up there for me. First time I made dinner for my BF (it was Rachel Ray’s Chicken Maravasala & pappardelle w/ Rosemary gravy– link below) I wanted him to come over and see how effortless I was in the kitchen, so I prepped everything and had all of the ingredients in little bowls, ready to go. Also committed the recipe to memory. None of this was very 30-minute-meals-esque, obviously. He walked in and was like “I feel like I’m about to watch a cooking show take place.” He meant it in the sweetest way ever, of course. Oops, I guess there is such a thing as looking too organized! Anyways, now he knows I’m like a tornado in the kitchen and that works for him (and me!)!

    Here’s the recipe!
    http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/chicken-marvalasala-and-pappardelle-with-rosemary-gravy-recipe/index.html)

  • Jess

    Since it is close to the holidays I’d have to say I love any Christmas. My whole family gets together and my mom cooks and bakes all day. Mom’s food is always the best food/food memory.

  • The Duo Dishes

    Our pre-Thanksgiving parties with friends in LA! It’s potluck, but we make a lot of things for the feast as well. So many people and so much food!

  • alix*modernkiddo

    OOooh this is a good one sistah!
    One of my favorite food memories is Italian Night at my familie’s house. It was friday night. My dad would make pasta or homemade pizza on a rectangular cookie sheet….which was weird in the 70s. Square pizza??? Hmmmm we were dubious. But it tasted amazing. My folks would play Italian records on the hi fi and I was in charge of the chianti bottle with the dripping candle wax on it. I took my job verrry seriously, picking the perfect drippy candle each week in matching colors. haha.

  • Crystal F.

    A week ago I made a chocolate pie (for the very 1st time!) for my sister’s birthday. Everyone loved it, & my sister told me it tasted just like the pies this old lady used to make when we were younger! What a compliment!

  • Anna

    My husband and I had our first date at a Korean restaurant in Seattle before watching The Squid and the Whale (worst first date movie ever!). We ate kimbap and bulgogi and I introduced him to soju- a super powerful alcoholic beverage that kept our conversation easy and fun while calming my nervous-talker tendencies. Three months later we moved in together. 🙂

  • christina

    It’d have to be whenever my mom makes her deep fried crab slathered in green onion, ginger, garlic. SO GOOD.

  • rachel

    At first I didn’t see *favorite* and I thought right away of a time I was taking a road trip with the women of my family to move my sister to another state and I accidentally swallowed a butterscotch candy whole- it was stuck in my throat for hours! Thankfully it eventually melted. I still avoid eating those candies but when I see them it still reminds me of the time I got to spend with my family and all the memories we created together!

  • wootowl

    wait, didn’t i give you your first squirt of jr watkins too? only in vanilla? plus, i’m yer water buddy, so i think that it’s only fitting that i win the water cup. still, i’ll be a good sport and participate.

    my favorite food memories are as follows (i can’t narrow it to just one):

    pumpkin parfaits at sweet life
    this awesome green curry with tempeh i had in nyc
    being fed lime juice on apple slices
    any time i try a new recipe and it turns out better than i expected it to (hello roasted broccoli)

  • Emily

    I have fond memories of cooking “hobo stew” over the campfire at summer camp when I was a kid. Meat, potatoes, carrots and catsup wrapped in tinfoil and cooked until done. Did it take hours? Probably. Who knows, it was one of those magical childhood times, where the food tasted way better than the sum of its parts.

  • AnnaLyon

    A couscous shared with a local family in Rabat, Morocco. Our butcher invited us in his home to share a whole day together.
    Food at home is one thousand times better than in restaurants in Morocco!

  • Courtney

    Eating Eggs Benedict with a good friend at our favorite cafe!

  • ModischSchreibt

    I cannot honestly say that I have one favorite food memory. I live in Germany and my family lives in America and I think that any time I get the chance to fly over to the states and have a home cooked meal made by my mom and dad is such a treat.

    As a child we always ate together and cooked together. It’s not even necessarily about eating the food (which don’t get me wrong, I LOVE!) it’s more about the time in the kitchen spent together getting our creative juices flowing and cooking something great as a team. There have been so many spills, successes, triumphs, disasters, laughs, hugs, kisses in that kitchen. And the food created was memorable, I can say that, sure. But the conversations made over creating lunches, meals, dinners, snacks is what I remember the most. Cooking together is such a bonding things, and I am so greatful that my mother was patient enough to let me TRY, and to teach me, and to work right up along with me in the kitchen.

    Those are my favorite food memories I savour….

  • Dunja

    The Christmas season comes to mind when I think of fav food memories. It’s just that turkey stuffing with all the herbs that infuse the room when you cut the roast turkey open. And mulled wine, which we weren’t able to drink as kids, but loved the smell. But what sticks in mind are all the abundance of cakes and cookies which religiously had to be ready till Christmas Eve, but not to be eaten till Christmas Day.

  • Mary Mihaha

    My favorite food memory is the time my brother and my dad tricked me into eating calamari by telling me it was “Italian french fries.” I was a gullible 6 year old. Every since, getting people to unsuspectingly eat calamari is a family pastime.

  • michelle @ The Domestic Mama

    When I was a kid, they introduced “Belle”, Snoopy’s girlfriend at a department store celebration. There were toys, balloons and of course, giant Snoopy and Belle “people” for photo ops for the parents. I remember, however… more than anything…pink icing cookies. These vanilla cake-like cookies, with a fluffy crispy-creamy pale pink frosting on top. I have tried and tried to re-create this food memory for years now. I have finally decided I just need a time machine, so I can go back to being 5 and eat one. 🙂

  • Ellen

    My favorite food memory is of making cupcakes with my grandmother for my birthday. When I was very little, she would drive to my house from New Jersey in the midst of the February cold and chill and we would spend the morning making cupcakes (vanilla cake with pink frosting) for my birthday. To this day, “pink” is still my favorite flavor of cupcake.

  • Sarah

    One of my favorite food memories was to wake up smelling a home cooked breakfast at my grandmother’s place. Biscuits and gravy, fried apples, eggs, bacon, the works!

  • Mairi

    My grandmother teaching me to bake when I was just a wee one. She had this HUGE bowl, and we’d bake cookies or bread or cakes every week. Anytime we used brown sugar, we’d each get a little nibble. It was always warm and wonderful smelling in that kitchen, and I think of it everytime I take down the brown sugar in my own kitchen.

  • Monster Jen

    I’d have to say making christmas gnocci with my mama when I was young. Mixing up the ricotta flour and eggs, rolling and cutting the gnocci. We didn’t indent them with a fork, but made them complete with an flick of the pointer finger, a precise light pulling motion that took me a while to get the hang of every year. One year in the boiling water the gnocci all stuck together in one giant pasta clump…and ever since, my mom has made lasagna instead!

  • Joanna

    As a kid, my dad worked late and would always eat dinner a few hours after us. Despite having already eaten the very same dinner, I’d always sit next to my dad and ask him if it tasted good. He’d say “yes, do you want some?” And I’d always say “Yep” and then proceed to share his dinner. No wonder I was a chubby kid!!! I love this memory, because it shows me how important food and eating was to me even back then.

  • Hillary

    This one is easy – hard shell Maryland blue crabs at the beach every summer. A bushel in the middle of the table set only with mallets, knives and newspaper and we were good to go.

  • Vanessa

    The first time I made Joy’s carrot cake pancakes. They made the entire house smell awesome and everyone was running for more! I love when new recipes turn out PERFECT the first time around. I’m going to make your salted caramel popcorn bars tonight. I’m sure it will be another fav. in my house!

  • Birdie

    One of my favorite food memories is such a simple one: When I was a kid, in the summertime, my 3 brothers and I would pack into our big green suburban with my parents and we would go on loooooong road trips across the country. To save money, we would stop at a grocery store at lunchtime and my mom would buy big white crusty rolls, chunks of cheese and apples.

    I don’t know why this simple food, no condiments or veggies or anything, tasted so good but I can only think it was because it was part of a shared experience we had as a family. And usually, because we’d saved so much dough on lunch, we’d stop in the afternoon for ice cream in some tiny little midwestern town. Good times.

  • Amanda

    Eating masala dosa (potato-filled lentil-rice crepes) in India at a small gas station/restaurant on the way to see the Taj Mahal. I can still taste how fresh and fragrant each bite was.

  • Vanessa

    Cooking for with my Aunt and her sister for the holidays. We are three different people in the kitchen, but when together we made some awesome dishes. We each brought a little bit of something to each dish. OH and did I mention the homemade gnocchi? 🙂

  • Kate D.

    So many good food memories. I loved making noodles with my dad for turkey noodle soup the day after Thanksgiving. Oh, and making my cousin’s wedding cake was pretty fantastic.

  • rachel arnold

    One of my favorite food memories is learning to make homemade pasta with my husband – he loves making it as much as I do, and its something we can both do in the kitchen together!

  • Emily

    Making applesauce with my mom and then eating it warm with ice cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg as soon as we finished.

  • Erica

    My favorite food memory is my great-grandmother making family dinners on Sunday. I remember her bringing out the pot of spaghetti and I swear to this day that it was bigger than me. After filling up on her from-scratch pasta and sauce she would bring out the meat and then the salad. I would be so incredibly full by the time it was all over!

  • Anna

    One of my favorite food memories is the first pie I ever made. I was in high school and had picked lots of blackberries, and the elderly next door neighbor offered to show me how to make them into a pie.

    It was fun and a good education in pastry, but I do remember being disappointed that it didn’t turn out looking as good as the ones you see at the bakery. She told me not to worry, because “that’s how people know it’s homemade!”

  • Alissa

    When I was little and my grandmother stopped by my house, I would insist on going back to her house where we would whip up some cupcakes. I loved spending that time with her and got to surprise my Dad with a cupcake when he picked me up!

  • Karla

    Before my Aunt passed away she taught me how to make Sopa Borracha, which translates to “drunk soup”. But its actually not a soup at all its a Nicaraguan dessert, a dense cornmeal cake that is soaked in a spiced rum syrup over night (served the next day). It is so delicious, a little complicated to make, but I frequently make the syrup for drinks, pancakes, bread puddings, anything really. The sweet smell of the spices and rum cooking on the stove bring back all the wonderful memories of my Aunt, not the memories of her illness or when she was sick.
    I always think that she would be so happy to know that Im continuing tradition and keeping her beautiful memory alive.

  • laura k

    Making funnel cakes in my Grandma’s kitchen, when I was probably 3 years old. I haven’t had a funnel cake in decades, but whenever I think of this, I instantly want one. Too bad fair season is over.

  • Angel Girl

    Making strawberry jam with my Mom. It was a lot of work but so satisfying to see all the jars lined up on the counter. It still is. I so cherish those memories now that she’s gone.

  • mandy gross

    My favorite food memory was last Thanksgiving when I made a pumpkin roll for dessert and everyone in my family loved it. Believe me, that’s a hard thing to accomplish!

  • Laken

    I’d have to say helping my mom make her famous sweet potato casserole every Thanksgiving and Christmas!

  • Sarah

    One of my favorite food memories: Sitting in the 90 degree heat in Turkey, eat the best and spiciest lamb doner of my life, and sweating buckets!

  • Stephanie

    My favorite food memory is making sugar cookies with my mom at Christmas time as a kid. I loved decorating them with icing and I think it is what made me fall in love with baking! <3

  • Suzy

    Being on vacation with friends and having a homemade ice cream throw down! There were no losers and lots of good ice cream on a hot July day.

  • Amanda

    eatting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my playhouse as a kid!

  • Kate

    Making fresh pasta with a countertop roller with Mom in the farmhouse.

  • Sarah

    The first thing that comes to mind is the vibrant colored birthday cakes my mom used to make for my brothers and me. She used jello to get the strong fruit flavors and vivid colors. We loved them, they were so much fun, if not so natural!

  • Chrisan

    When I lived in Manila, I used to visit my grandma in the province of Marinduque during the summer. One of her neighbors had sugar cane growing in her property, so we were able to try it out.
    I remember chewing on that freshly cut sugar cane for the very first time. It was soooooo juicy and soooo incredibly refreshing.
    I wish I could go back there right now.

  • Irene

    My family is Chinese, so I grew up making homemade dumplings and potstickers. It was always such a community thing – my grandma taught me how to make them, and my mom and i always had the best conversations about everything and nothing in particular. It’s still my favorite thing to make!

  • Booyah

    Coconut oil is also an AMAZING deep conditioner. And that is my current fave memory. It happened this weekend. And now my hair is awesome.

  • Melanie

    So many to mention really.

    But…when I was a child, I really remember being excited by my mom’s ‘salad plates’…rolled up meat, cubes of cheese, a pickle or some olives, perfectly sliced carrots, cucumbers, celery.
    And of course being allowed to eat it while sitting on the floor and watching The Flintstones. It was always a treat.

  • melanie

    favorite, just because i can now laugh about it…

    when i was a teenager i was making a meal out of one of my mom’s cookbooks. you know, the red and white checkerboard one? well, i had it sitting on her flattop range and turned on the wrong burner. i walked away for a second and came back to a cookbook in flames. oops! my mom still gives me a hard time about it – although i’m now the better cook. 😉

  • Vira

    I have tons of memories from when I was a kid…but my favorite memories so far have been cooking with my 3 year old son! We’ve made pasta, gnocchis, decorated cookies, and hopefully we’ll make a ton more memories together!!

  • Anna P

    yay yay yayy

  • Becy

    My favorite food memory is the smell of fresh Christmas cookies baking while at my parents house during the holidays. Simply cannot be beat!

  • ThriftyMomma

    Oh, my favorite food memories is my mom making drop biscuits from pancake mix. My brothers and I would smell them baking and we’d long for them esp on cold winter days with lots of butter and jam…yummy!

  • stephanie

    I love, love, love the J.R. Watkins lemon lotion. I had to stop using it while I was pregnant because it was giving me constant cravings for lemon cake. Yummmm.

    My favorite food memory is waking up to my Mom making us biscuits and gravy. This was/is one of my all time favorite comfort foods. And nobody makes it better than her.

  • Tiah

    My grandma would always serve canned peas with TONS of butter with dinner. And she would always serve them in her green bowl with flowers across the border, every time. She is in a nursing home now, and I grabbed that bowl when we were going through her things. I serve peas in that bowl too (with a lot less butter) it makes me think of her. My husband calls it my pea bowl! 😉

  • Susan

    One of my favorite memories is the day I baked my first layer cake! OMG I have messed it up so many times before, but for some reason this day my had was steady and my leveling was level! I will never forget it! Gave me the confidence I need to try it again and again!

  • Robyn

    two words: festive special (canadians will know what i mean)!

  • Effie

    it would have to be me giving my mom separate recipes for german apple cake, banana chocolate chip cake and carrot cake, and my mom deciding to combine it all together into a meta apple banana carrot chip cake… and it still tasted delicious!

    must be the mother’s touch 🙂

  • Carlie

    Dinner on the beach, sun setting in the Virgin Islands

  • Ann M.

    My favorite food memory is my grandma’s sugar cookies at Christmas – she made them in many shapes and decorated them with frosting, colored sugars, and other fun edibles! She passed away several years ago and making them is just not the same without her.

  • Talka

    Ohhh wow this is a tough one…my family LOVES food! I think my favorite though revolves around homemade pizza. My parents always made pizza for my sister and I – my mom and dad would rotate, and my sister and I didn’t even know you could order takeout pizza until we were in middle school! One night when I was probably about 6 or 7, my mom was making the pizza and was getting really into it – ridiculous fake Italian accent, tossing the dough, the whole thing. The phone rang and my mom, thinking it was my grandmother (who always called around dinner time), picked it up and announced “PIZZA PARLOUR what can I get for you??!”.

    Needless to say, there was a very long pause on the other end and my mother realized it was my elementary school principle calling about something rather important.

    Oops! 😛

  • Subha

    My favorite food memory is from my when i was 7-8 growing up in India – during summer holidays with all of us cousins visiting my grandparents house – sitting on the terrace eating our dinner under a moonlit sky

  • jeannette

    My favorite food memory was making and decorating my wedding reception cookies! Making the dough is so relaxing and cutting out 34 heart shaped cookies was too adorable. Then outlining and flooding then with pink rotal icing, too cute! And its sentimental as well 🙂

  • Mary Margeson

    When I was a kid, I thought the only way to make anything was the way my mom did, in the farmer’s wife, everything from scratch, traditional, fat-of-the-land type of way. And now, as I cook up a storm in my own kitchen, I find myself wishing I had many of those recipes…recently when I asked for her recipes for molasses cookies, white bean soup, and heart white bread, she laughed and told me she’d never used a recipe for any of those, but that she’d try to write something down for me. It just confirms what I always knew…my mother is the best cook EVER!

  • mary

    my favorite food memory would have to be making home made ice cream with my family growing up! we had an old school/hand crank machine so we would all take turns turning it. It seemed like it took forever but it was totally worth it!

  • Kim

    Not sure this is my favorite food memory but it’s the first one that came to mind so it must be significant.

    My mother was a real stickler when it came to letting us drink soda. BIG treat. We always had it in the house because my dad worked for Coke, but my sister and I rarely got to drink it. Except on taco and pizza nights. On nights we had tacos or pizza we got to drink Coke and it was a big, big deal.

    I thank my mom now but at the time I thought I was so deprived.

  • Amy

    Ooh, I meant to enter this the other day and I got sidetracked…but I remembered today, as I was lured back here with the promise of Brussels-Sprouts (yay!) This is an awesome giveaway, Tracy!

    My favorite food memory has to be making pancakes with my dad every Saturday morning growing up. He’d make the Mickey-Mouse shaped pancakes, and he’d even make pancakes for my Barbies! I’ll always cherish those memories :o)

    xo – Amy

    PS – I can’t wait to smear myself with the lemon lotion, while eating coconut-oiled pancakes and sipping on some chai tea in the tumbler that doesn’t sweat…OMG…if I win! ;o)

  • Tara

    Huge dinners at my grandmother’s house, always with celery sticks in a sterling silver cup that was a baby gift for my now 65 year old uncle.

  • Helene Mahnken

    This is my first time dropping by the site and I’m very excited about it 🙂

    One of my best food memories was having Saturday dinners with the whole family every week for years. I loved it so much and it has shaped my life in a huge way.

  • JING

    My favorite food is definitely Coca Cola pork ribs… my mom fixed the recipe, but if you want to see something similar search Coca Cola chicken on Wikipedia! We don’t use to have it too often though, because there weren’t many markets that have good ribs. It’s a popular dish in Hong Kong!! My mom’s recipe is kinda different but perfectly simple though, just some oil, ribs, and coke!(sometimes, she add slices of ginger too) Just fry the ribs with oil first, then pour the coke in… cook until the coke is almost dry out, and I even wrote a three pages paper about Coca Cola Rib in my writing class… here’s part of the essay: “When I bit it, the juice of the rib came out with mellifluous Coca Cola syrup; it was irresistibly tasty! Soon, I felt energized; perhaps there was some caffeine left in the sauce!” XD

  • Ashlee

    I grew up on Long Island where there is a large Italian community. I used to eat pastina for breakfast. It’s little teeny weeny star shaped pasta (about the size of couscous–but way cuter). Whenever it started to get cold outside, Mom would make up a batch for breakfast. adding milk, butter and a pinch of sugar. Since I don’t live there anymore, whenever I get a small box in the mail I cherish it. Every time I make it now I get taken right back to Long Island.

  • Amina

    My favorite food memory would HAVE to be the time my mom baked a cake and some cookies for my dad (who was her ex-husband at the time). My mom was vegan and tried to make a cake and cookies with no eggs… however, apparently she didn’t have a suitable substitute. And on top of it all she BURNT IT!!! lol. So she gave my dad some burnt, hard, crumbly (and possible inedible) cake and cookies, but because they had been divorced at this time for many years, it almost seemd like a conspiracy. LOL!!!

  • SHELLIE

    Standing in the kitchen with my then-90-year old great-grandmother while she taught me her recipe for Honey Balls, which she hadn’t previously to shown anyone. It was the last time we cooked together and I still make them each Christmas.

  • MBoardman

    My favourite food memory is only from the past weekend, when I made bread for the first time! When I lifted up the dishtowel after its second rise, I almost cried. It worked out perfectly!

  • Kelly

    My favorite food memories involve watching my mom bake cake. Though it was just out of the box, Betty Crocker style, as a young girl, I thought it was magic!

  • sasha

    I loved making apple pie with my mama. It was her sister’s recipe. It has a crumb topping and we always used this one knife and this one red bowl and it was usually my job to cut the butter into the flour and sugar and spices. Baking it now as an adult is such a special and meaningful moment for me. Makes me feel like a kid!!

  • Heather

    My favourite memory is my mum baking chocolate self saucing pudding and having it with ice cream. Another was stewed tamillos with ice cream. Thanks for the chance to win 🙂

  • Lauren

    My favourite food memory: asking for butter to put on my roast beef when i was a kid. sorry, mom.. i think my taste and her ability to cook a roast to a desirable rareness have both improved since then, so now we can laugh about it.

  • Kristen

    Amazing giveaway!!!!

    Well since its coming up on Thanksgiving the memory that comes to mind is the first time I attempted to make the whole Thanksgiving meal myself! I was like 19yrs old and didnt realize how much work it really is! I dont think we ate until around 9 o’clock that night haha!

  • Brooke

    Going to my Grandma’s on Sundays for her fried chicken with my family. Then my Mom would make me a cold chicken sandwich for lunch on Monday mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  • Debbie Vogel

    One of my best food memories: cake, jello and watching Disney with my 6 brother and sisters while my mom put pin curls in my hair…
    Debbie

  • Carrie

    My best food memory: eating gelato every day, sometimes multiple times a day, during my two week trip to Italy. I sampled more kinds of gelato than I knew existed 🙂

  • Vanessa

    Sneaking bites of my mother’s homemade bread dough as it was rising.

  • Jessica

    My grandmother’s pumpkin bread- especially at this time of year. I make it, but it’s never quite the same.

  • Andrea

    My grandma’s christmas cookies.. she had pretty bad rheumatoid arthritis which made it hard for her to use her hands, but she still made us the best cookies every year.

  • ann

    My favorite food memory, that’s tough to choose. Either Mom’s oatmeal pancakes with orange syrup or Dad’s buckwheat pancakes. When either were cooking, us kids would be racing each other to get the table set as fast as possible so we could sit down to eat as soon as they came off the griddle. Both are still favorites in the family & we have even converted BIL to a oatmeal pancake fan.
    Thank you for the chance to win such wonderful goodies.
    ~C8>

  • April

    Oh, great recommendations! I have been looking for the perfect to-go cup that doesn’t sweat all over my desk. Thanks!

  • April

    Oh! Best food memory is mom making me a huge bowl of mac and cheese and eating while on the front porch.

  • Noelle

    Oooh, I would have to say…probably eating fondue the night my husband and I got engaged, and the waiter, who was having a generally klutzy evening, spilled a cup of melted butter all over my husband’s suit.

    Ok, looks like everyone’s putting up sappy memories (the fondue one just makes me laugh), so my other favorite memory is making Christmas cookies with my mom and sister every year.

  • Sage & Style

    Making cherry pies with my grandmother in Northern Michigan (cherry capital of the country!). She’s so patient yet fastidious when it comes to the crust. I think I rolled it like a champ! But it was always perfectly tart + sweet and finished off with some local vanilla ice cream.

  • anna

    my fav food memory was probably when my lil bro & i were kids and we would go to these huge chinese wedding banquets that would serve a 8-10 course meal. The table would seat 10ppl w/ a bottle of cognac & 2 liters of soda (7-up & coke) and 10 little bowls & spoons on a lazy susan. They start off the course with a soup (usually bird’s nest). As soon as my brother & i get our bowls of soup we would reach for the cognac to add a spoonful into our soup, not too much where it taste like a bowl of alcohol but just enough to give it a nice kick. This is all in the presence of adults mind you. hahaha. We didn’t be come future alcoholics but i swear we were all under 10yrs old those days but it would be our favorite meal @ the banquet.

  • leslie

    tunafish sandwiches and ice cold 7up at the beach when I was a wee thing. we went every weekend for the whole Summer and came home salty, brown and sleepy…come to think of it – this is one of my favorite memories period 🙂

  • Jessica

    Oh, hmm! I guess I’d have to say one of my favorite food memories is from a few years ago while I was living in Cleveland. My fellow Texan roommate and I decided to throw a Tex-Mex dinner party for our friends so they could taste the real thing. There were two kinds of enchiladas, borracho beans, guacamole, fresh-fried tortilla chips, margaritas, and a tres leches cake. We were STUFFED. Come to think of it, I threw a similar party in Baltimore. ha!

    Thanks for the giveaway! I’ve been pining after one of those tumblers. And I have a black kitty, too! 🙂

  • Barb in Louisiana

    Hi – found you via Bleubird and really enjoy your blog. I’ll become a frequent visitor – : ) .

    I have many food memorines from growing up in upstate NY but I think one of my most precious memories is of my very tolerant grandmother. She was a very proper, well mannered lady, elderly when my brother and I came along. She’d make us tea (the proper way, in china cups and with silver spoons) and toast. She’d butter the toast and let us put sugar from the sugar bowl alllll over the toast, then dump the extra sugar back in the bowl. Naturally, this put tons of crumbs in her fancy sugar bowl each time we did this. Did she ever complain or scold? Never. Only years later (she passed on when I was 11) did I realize the mess it was and how utterly classy she was to just let it go and let us be happy kids. So thanks Grandma D. That was some very classy and caring love there.

  • Ash

    OMG, I totally use to have coconut oil on my toast!! Its sooo good!! I need to start doing that again!!
    By the way, I’m totally with you on that lemon handcream, it’s like smelling a freshly baked lemon pie!! Yum!! I’m all about the sweet smelling hand lotions. They are the best!!

  • Cindy A.

    Thank you for offering such a generous giveaway! I love, love, *LOVE* J.R. Watkins lemon lotion. Did you know they also offer lemon furniture polish, hand soap, all purpose cleaner, body oil AND cuticle salve?! But I’m not obsessed or anything. Ha! 😉

    moving on… *whistles*

    My favorite food memory is one that I don’t actually remember. It was my first birthday and my first experience with chocolate cake. Apparently I got so excited I stuck my face in the middle of it! My face, hair, hands and arms were covered in chocolate icing… and my family has the pictures to prove it. They’re in the embarrassing album along with all the other “perfectly timed” snapshots of my childhood. Don’t even get me started on the potty training pics!

  • Ashley

    Wow!!! Thanks for the opportunity to win! My favorite food memory is the first time I baked a cheesecake. I had baked cookies before and all sorts of other easier items, like Jello cheesecake, but never the real deal. I was terrified. And pretty certain the waterbath was going to soak into the cheesecake. But everything turned out great and the cheesecake was delicious.

  • Steph

    Oh there are so many.. the blessings of a life very involved with food ;D

    My two favorites I think: eating MASSIVE leftovers sandwiches with my younger brother the day after Thanksgiving – turkey, stuffing, mashed potato, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce, and making peanut butter cookies with my best friend in college. After they were done, I apparently looked at her with the saddest face and said, “THEY TASTE LIKE PEANUT BUTTER!” I thought they would taste less like pure peanut butter and more like shortbread..

  • Andrea

    My favorite food memory is every year when my girlfriends and I set aside a Saturday to do all of our holiday baking together. It’s so fun to see what the others plan to make and taste each other’s treats! The Christmas music is just a plus!

  • holly

    What a fun giveaway! I love all three items – lemon is my new favorite scent of choice.

    My favorite food memory is chopping potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Isn’t that silly? I find it strangely relaxing and love to just sit and chop while the rest of the recipes are progressing.
    Last year my brother-in-law got in on the act and we finished 10 lbs!! It was such a fun time to sit and talk while we chopped away.

  • Linda

    My favorite food memory – cooking a traditional Korean spread with my grandma, who is an amazing cook!

  • Lisa

    My favorite food memory is also my first memory. We were visiting my paternal great-grandmother in rural Louisiana on my mother’s birthday. I remember “helping” her make and decorate the cake. I couldn’t believe how many candles there were. I was two, and I found out recently that it was only my mother’s 25th birthday!

    Thanks for the great tips! I keep hearing wonderful things about coconut oil.

  • Sarah K

    Hi! My favorite food memory is the first time that I took my husband out for sushi. He was very cute!

  • Leanne

    One of my fondest food memories is the smell of scones baking on Christmas morning.
    It is a tradition for my mom to make 3-4 different types of scones for us all to fill up on–after opening presents–before the big Christmas dinner! I recently made cranberry-orange scones in my own kitchen and the smell of them baking made me think for a second that it was Christmas morning!! soon enough… 🙂

  • Sare

    I grew up in a large family and there was lots of competition. One day as a joke my sister decided to elbow me out of the way for the mashed potatoes, only it was a lot more effective than she planned. She knocked me right out of my chair! goofy, but I love to tease her about it to this day.

  • Nelly Ahmad-Chang

    Does your cat comes with it too? Hehehehe

  • mindy t

    When I was a little girl my grandparents owned a bakery. I remember vividly the smell and the taste of the buttercream frosting straight from the gigantic hobart mixer. My granpa also used to make doughnuts shaped like a foot–a cutter made from his own foot. I’ve always wanted to try coconut oil.

  • Glenn

    My favorite food memory might be somewhat constructed, muddled, and might possibly not entirely exist, since it occurred when I was not fully conscious. It was my junior year in high school, and I had just pulled my first all-nighter to finish a term paper on “Howl.” Let me preface this by saying I was not, in fact, “starving, hysterical, naked” while cooking. Another time for that story. Anyway, I was slightly delirious after being up for 44 hours, and at 4:00 am decided to turn on the Food Network. Mistake #1. Or Greatest Gift to My Being #1, depending on who you ask. I immediately was struck with a desire to cook. Granted, I’d never seriously cooked in my life, but still. I rushed into the kitchen and in a daze began feverishly pulling ingredients, strewing them around the room. From the evidence my mother found in the trash and on the counter the next morning, I’d evidently cooked rice and beans with avocado, frozen french fries, lemon cake muffins, and several attempts at what must have been tiny pancakes. I remember about half of it. But never in my life have I wanted to cook THAT badly, so in retrospect it retains the coveted spot of favorite food memory.

  • Michelle

    My grandma making “milk toast” for me when I stayed overnight. : )

  • Marilyn

    Our wedding cake – a memorable cake and a lovely day.

  • Heidi

    My favorite food memory is fruit cocktail with my extended family for Thanksgiving… we all gathered at Grandma’s house and cut up fresh fruit and mixed it together in a 5 gallon crock and served it as an appetizer on Thanksgiving. (There were always 30+ so don’t let the 5-gallon quantity disturb you…)

  • Lisa W.

    The twinkle in my Gram’s eye as she offered me a snack (often, a piece of meat or cheese “in the hand”, or some chopped fresh fruit with toothpicks.)

    Second favorite: car rides to school with my other grandma. The ride was a good 45 minutes, and she would pack me a “breakfast” for the trip in a brown paper bag. There was always enough food for lunch and a snack, too.

  • Teri

    I LOVE that lemon lotion! It’s so delicious, I wish I could just eat it.

    My food memory would have to be making my first cheesecake and how great it turned out. I think we ate it within a matter of days. I’m currently concocting another cheesecake.

  • erinlucy

    ooh this is a tough one, my favourite food memory would have to be either eating fruit loops at my nanna’s house when i slept over (we NEVER had sugary cereal ever at my house) or making mulberry jam with my mum when i was a kid. my sister and i used to mush up the mulberries (which we picked ourselves) and would make so much mess. i’m sure my mum hated cleaning up after our jam-making sessions!

  • Corrin

    You have excellent taste! I love anything lemon flavored or scented.

    My favorite food memory is having our wedding reception at our favorite pizza joint (Chicago Pizza & Oven Grinders in…Chicago). Friends and family gave us that goofy raised eyebrow look until they tasted the Mediterranean bread…and pizza pot pies…and homemade ice cream.

    Delish!

  • Sarah

    I LOVE COCONUT OIL TOO! so obsessed.

    My favorite food memory is probably the day I started boycotting birthday cake from a box and requested apple pie instead. On my 10th birthday, I believe. Every year since then, I’ve had something different- blueberry pie, blueberry cake with powdered sugar, gingerbread cake with whipped cream, rich chocolate cake with peppermint Jo-Jos… the list goes on. Never another traditional birthday cake for me!

  • K

    anything my dad would cook! he put so much love into everthing.

  • Annika

    My favorite food memory goes way back when I was little, visiting family on the countryside. It’s a big old farmhouse with a walk in pantry that – I still don’t know how – stayed cold, almost like a fridge, even during the summer.
    On vacation, anything goes, so I regularly had (and was allowed from my grandma) cake for breakfast. Plate in hand, walking into the pantry, choosing from half a dozen kinds (big houses = big families = lots of variety) and loving it.

    What a great giveaway! Thank you so much for doing this!

  • kristine

    Lemon hand cream sounds divine! I love finding small special things that make life fancy everyday.

    My favorite food memory is eating grandma’s homemade chicken nuggets as a child. I remember looking up at her as she took apart the chicken, mixed the breading and threw it in the fryer. Certainly not the healthiest meal, but the smell was indescribable and I’ve never found anything comparable to the taste of a homemade nugget!

  • Tracey

    And my favorite food memory is eating my mom’s pumpkin muffins on cold days after school.

  • Tammy

    When I was a child we didn’t have a whole ton of money, we were comfy, and had a great family life. My mother used to be able to take a package of hotdogs, dice them up, made her own barbeque sauce and served them with mashed potatoes and veggies. Mmmmm, my brother and I loved them, and my mother was always worried that it wasn’t good enough. I love her. She is an amazing woman.

    Thanks for the opportunity to win. I love your blog~

  • monica

    baking bread with my mom when I was about 6 years old. sitting on the kitchen floor with the big blue bowl in between my knees and using both hands to stir… lovely.

  • Gabriella

    That lotion sound so great!!

  • Ryan

    My favorite food memory was of my mom making a nouvelle cuisine inspired lobster lasagna when I was a child (It was all white- no red sauce, etc). She talked this thing up for about a week, and spent what seemed like 48 hours making it, so as a food driven family, we could only imagine how good it was going to be. The anticipation and the hype may have made it seem anticlimactic to the rest of the family, but I think my mom’s effort and willingness to step outside of her comfort zone made this meal one of the favorites of my life. It was over 20 years ago, so I really have no idea of whether or not it was good, but it is certainly one that I will remember for the rest of my life. I know I’m not difficult to please, but for what it is worth, mom, I ate all that was on my plate, and likely the leftovers too!

  • jackie

    awesome giveaway! i hate to be bothered by lotion too. but i sure do need it!
    my favorite food memory is not one in particular. i just love sunday family dinners. we either have them with our small family of 5 at our own home. or at my grandma who lives up the street+ my parents, siblings, and nieces and nephew. or at my in- laws with any combo of 8-20 people! the memories made for us and now for my children are some of my most cherished!
    jacquelynbateman@hotmail.com

  • Fave Food Memory: Pasta Making › shutterbean

    […] Thank you to everyone who posted one of their favorite food memories so far for my FIRST GIVEAWAY!! […]

  • Ryan

    One of my favorite food memories is eating Christmas rolls every Christmas morning as we opened presents. The recipe came from my grandmother – basically, refrigerator biscuits that have been flattened and topped with brown sugar and chopped nuts before baking. They were delicious.

  • stephanie

    my favorite food memory is cooking with my grandma! luckily, i still get to do it sometimes :)!

  • Anne

    This is tough…I grew up in a family where food was a celebration and an expression of love! I fondly remember Thanksgiving meals with my Mom-mom’s amazing pies and rolls, as well as dinners where my dad made meals that had been passed down the generations.

  • Renee Carter

    My favorite food memory is actually a series of them. Every Christmas my mom, sister and I would make sugar cookies and frosting from scratch. My mom would make the dough and then my sister and I would cut out the shapes with cookie cutters and color the frosting with food coloring and sit at the counter decorating for hours. So much fun!

  • Jo Castillo

    I have many food memories, our life seems to revolve around food. Mom and Dad were ranch hands and cooked from scratch and in Dutch ovens. Thanksgiving was a huge day with company and a full house and kitchen. My mom always made pumpkin pies to die for. Her crust was out of this world. I never paid attention and after we got married and were living in Bolivia we came home with the first stop to be at Mom’s for Thanksgiving. Big disappointment. Well, she had emergency surgery and I had to cook. I asked about her pies and she said, “Don’t put cloves in the pumpkin pie. You know, I never liked to make pie crust. Just go get the pie crust sticks (Pillsbury as I recall) at the store. That is what I use!” What a shock! None of us ever knew. I had been trying many recipes to come up with one like hers. I don’t think they make those sticks anymore, frozen is not the same and now I resort to crust from scratch. I did get her other recipes though and they are yummy! She made wonderful dinner rolls, huge and buttery. Mmmmmm.

  • susan g

    My earliest cooking memory is making scrambled eggs in a small black cast iron frying pan. I must have been about 8 years old. I felt an urge to add a couple drops of blue food coloring to the beaten eggs — and it turned them green.
    I felt really funny about eating them, but discovered that if I closed my eyes I couldn’t tell the difference… (This was way before the Dr. Seuss book, really!)
    I like your “favorite things”!

  • heather

    definitely standing on the open dishwasher door to reach a pan of freshly baked brownies…and eating them directly from the pan. i was about 2 years old, and my mischievousness was perfectly captured on film.

  • Sachita

    Ooh, lovely trio for the giveaway. I’ve been loving the Burt’s Bee’s Foot lotion I put on nightly – smells of coconut & peppermint, which sounds weird, but is really rich and lovely.

    Seems all my favorite memories involve food. So, I don’t know if this is my FAVE fave, but it’s been with me a lot recently as I’m really looking forward to spending Christmas with my family for the first time in a few years. It’s my Babcia (grandmother) in her full apron at the kitchen counter on Christmas Eve, cutting and stuffing the dough circles to make so many potato and cheese pierogi for Wigilia (Polish meatless Christmas Eve feast). The kitchen was open to the dining room, so everyone was around and we’d all come in and out and help and talk. Still can’t make them as large or pinch them shut as well as she could, but they taste just as good. She’s not with us anymore, but my mom usually makes them for the holidays now.

  • Danielle Ross

    Hello, this giveaway looks fab. I have been reading for a long time but never commented!

    My favorite food memory is on rainy days when I was a kid after a fun rainy day schedule at school and playing in puddles all afternoon, i always new what was for dinner. Silverdollar pancakes. My grandmother would always make pancakes for dinner on rainy days and it was the most comforting food you could imagine on a gray cold day.

  • Leslie

    My favorite food memory is my mother making homemade cinnamon rolls. They are horrible for you; she knows how to make them without a recipe she has made them so often. Caramel sauce, nuts, and frosting!

  • Bethany

    MY favorite food memory is when my grandma used to make us big bear-shaped pancakes with chocolate chip eyes! 🙂

  • Stiffler

    Hi.
    My favorite food memory was making Christmas cookies with my grandmother and great grandmother. It was one of my great grandmother’s last Christmases. I was in my early twenties. My great grandmother was in her 90s and had moved in with my grandparents because she had some health issues and a recent fall. She was the one that had always made the Christmas cookies. This particular cookie was a sand tart that was rolled out and cut with the same cookie cutters I could remember being used since I was a child. And, those cutters were probably used before I was born. To make the hole in the wreath, my great grandmother used an old thimble. My grandmother was not too keen to make the cookies. But, she and I did the work while my great grandmother supervised. We did everything by hand – mixing, rolling the dough as thin as possible and decorating. But, the decorating was only with colored sugar.
    A year or two after that, I borrowed the cookie cutters to make the cookies myself. When I went to return them to my grandmother, she told me to keep them. I still have them. I try to use them each year to make the sand tarts. I have missed a year or two, but when I do make them, my extended family seems to appreciate the effort and the memory. I did give up mixing them by hand and now use my Kitchen Aid. Sometimes I imagine what it might be like to bake them one more time with my great grandmother – introducing her to the Kitchen Aid and parchment paper.

  • And the winner is…. › shutterbean

    […] YOU to all of you who entered my first giveaway! I REALLY enjoyed reading all of your favorite food memories. There were soo many good ones! […]

  • Aubrey

    My favorite food memory? Making spaetzle with my mom and grandmother on our first trip to her house in Netphen, Germany. So lovely. Thanks for the giveaway!

  • My Current Fave Things GIVEAWAY!!! › shutterbean

    […] had fun putting together my first giveaway a few months ago and since then I've collected a few fun/ useful things for another round! ARE YOU […]

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