Photo Memories - Kitchen stuff

This is proof that my obsession with kitchen items goes all the way back! Granted I don't still chew on them.....for the most part. I could always be found as a child in that drawer constantly pulling out kitchen stuff, then after my sister was born and she started to get kitchen stuff I was all over that stuff like white on rice. Somewhere there is a picture of me a little older than this somewhere messing with my sister's toy kitchen. She could never even cook plastic food right, I always had to correct her.

What's funny is for years I never had any interest in cooking. I loved food obviously, but was never into cooking for myself. I tried a few dishes when I was growing up with my mom's help, but never really got into it until I moved out on my own the second time. The first time I was just too poor and busy to worry about cooking anything, but I'll cover that when the pictures from that time frame comes up.

I love to create and I guess that feeling has poured over into food. It also helps that after years in food service I just don't get into fast food all that much anymore. It wasn't until I bought the store and actually had people to cook for that I really started to play around in the kitchen. I had a huge beautiful kitchen when I sold the store, a kitchen that took me so long to get to. I will again someday have a big commercial type kitchen because of all the things in that building, I loved my kitchen. It rarely felt like work when I was in there, preparing deli salads, or making lunches for that year I did homemade lunches every day, fruit trays, deli trays, etc. I would spend time in there a lot. I had my t.v. mounted, the stereo hooked up, all that was missing was air conditioning. lol.

I love to put foods together and experiment with flavors and textures and colors. I love creating a home cooked meal and even more I love sharing that food with others. Growing up we had meals at the table, all together, good days or bad days, we shared them as a family around the table. I have seen families that don't have time to sit down and eat together, someone prepares something and leaves it on the stove for people to eat where and when they can or want. That was so not our house. Dinner time was dinner time. No phone calls were answered, no door bells answered, nothing but us and a dinner.

My mom hated cooking, her deal with my father was she would cook 5 nights a week and that was all. When she wanted to, she could really whip up a great meal but sometimes she made due with what we had and the time she had. We had some pretty bad meals, but we also had some really great ones. On Friday's we would eat out somewhere. It was usually some place cheap, but dang near every Friday we would go someplace and either actually shop for necessities, or just window shop and then if we were good we would stop somewhere to eat. Friday's were always my favorite day, it wasn't always about eating out, it was not knowing where we would be going that night, or what we would be doing. My parents liked to surprise us with stuff like that.

On Saturdays my mom would usually throw together something easy like grilled cheese, or a frozen pizza or something fun that we could eat off of paper plates and eat in the living room watching a movie or just general t.v. Eating in the living room was a pretty big deal in our house and it was special, and we treated it as such.

Sunday's was dad's day to cook. He was not much of a chef, but he did pretty well. Usually sloppy joes, or fried potatoes, or whatever he could think of. Hot dogs was always an easy fall back. lol. We used to, and still kind of do raze him when he cooks, he learned how to cook, he knew how to cook, but we were a very 50's household. Mom ran the inside and he ran the outside, it works for them. My mother used to get upset when someone would talk about "women's work" to her it wasn't, it was mother's work.

Food has always been a part of my life and I guess there are a lot of emotions tied into food and the consumption of it. There is probably something very wrong with that, but if it's done in a healthy way, there would be much less wrong with it. So I guess to me, food brings people together, whatever the gathering, there is always food, and people like the food aspect of it. It means they didn't have to cook it, it means they can just enjoy it. I enjoy making people happy, I enjoy cooking a good meal for people who appreciate a good homemade meal, it just makes me happy. Don't get me wrong, I love other people cooking for me too! lol.

So that's me, a kitchen junky. I collect gadgets and gizmos and appliances, some I use regularly, others once a year maybe, but I love them all!! I keep trying to expand my culinary skills and the flavors that I'm comfortable using. Slowly but surely I'll get there, I haven't had too many complaints so far. lol.

By the way.......am I cute or what?!?! ;)