As long as I can remember the kitchen table was the heart of the house. Many hours were spent with family and friends discussing everything under the moon, I find that food always brings people together. Growing up on a farm makes you appreciate the cycle of food. You have to care for it and then you can enjoy all its glory. Yes, this includes slaughtering of animals and picking potato bugs and the hardships of farm life. Nothing beats getting off the school bus and running to the garden and stopping to get a snack. Fresh strawberries or sugar peas or even pulling up a carrot and brushing off the dirt and eating it right there and then. Climbing fruit trees and getting the right apple, pear or handful of cherries. Picking black currants, red currants, gooseberries, raspberries. Learning not to eat the leaves of rhubarb. Summers were busy working the fields. But I would not trade it for the world. Nothing like fresh tomatoes, cobs of corn and grilled meat to fill you up after a long day. Sometimes, we would enjoy engaging in impromptu eating contests. I think I always had that Buddha belly and will have it for life. I love to eat.
Then you factor in the trips into the city and with wide eyes a whole new world opens up. My first trip to a Woolworth’s and tasting fresh squeezed orange juice with a warm steaming hot dog. Let alone walking into my first IGA store and seeing all the stuff on the shelves. Playing with an easy bake oven and empty shoe boxes as food items just doesn’t cut it. But this was the making of a Foodie. There is one thing that I will tell you is an underlying thread through my life and still stay with me. It is Porridge. It might have all started with the children’s poem:
Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot nine days old.
Well when I discovered Alphabets at the grocery store was the light at the end of the tunnel. I would never have to eat my mother’s porridge again - Rice Krispies and even Lucky Charms…. something other than my mother’s porridge. (*Mother is not the best of cooks) Nothing worst then hard cold porridge with a dot of butter in the middle. (Gag). You will see porridge has this effect on me .They say cooks skip a generation. We are trying to change that here. Trips to Grandmothers was always a treat we drank out of fancy tea cups and ate open face sandwiches and there was always a bowl of fresh fruit on the coffee table to snack on - grapes and apples and plums.
Sunday roasts were a mainstay, you never knew when unexpected company should show up in the afternoon; add a couple more potatoes and everybody eats. Life was carefree and wholesome growing up on the farm.
Then things changed and we moved to the Big City. Well what lay ahead was a gate way to many different foods I could not get enough of all the different cultures through schoolmates or fairs showcasing all the different foods. My first Taco was at the CNE Food Pavilion and just took off from there.
Eighth grade is when everything started to come together. Home economics. I made my first Lasagna, watched pressure cookers explode and all ethnic foods were appearing in front of me. Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Greek, Italian, French. Farmer’s Markets, Gourmet shops. Thank goodness I was doing sports. Buddha belly would explode. I have been known to eat two 12 inch submarine sandwiches in one sitting. (Oink). So Track and Field and The Girl Guides and various activities kept me in line. Three weeks in the Northern Ontario forests with the Girl Guides subsisting mainly on porridge will make one really eager for different food. Under a certain picnic table, under the gravel, is a lot of porridge(I know because I put it there. I know it is wasteful but porridge is nasty) though I do like Oatmeal cookies.
So years have come and gone and I had studied in the Hospitality Industry, but had decided to cook for family and friends instead of spending long hours in the back of a kitchen. So coming full circle I have a passion for food and love most things. I have a small list of dislikes but I can say I at least tried them once. Through my travels I have had many experiences in various markets and food courts and hope to share many stories.
