Have you ever thought of just how many moments, how many memories, are associated with food? Its flavors, its textures, its scents. Evoking memories of love and laughter. Family and familiarity. The bright, happy sense of home.

When I was a little girl, I used to sit on the kitchen counter and watch my mother cook. In my head, I can see her shaking a couple dashes of hot sauce into her meatloaf. Turning the cornbread as it fried. My Mama didn’t make baked cornbread, but mini hoecakes. I can smell the cinnamon she added to the custard for French toast.

She never rolled out the dough when she made chicken and pastry. She’d shape it with her hands. Pressing it between until it was as thin as she wanted it. The she’d carefully drop it into the bubbling broth. And, yet, somehow, flour ended up everywhere.

The smell of potatoes simmering in white sauce brings my sister, Teri, to mind. Every year, on the first chilly day, she’d make her ham and potato soup. It was her favorite. And, since our birthdays fell so close together, we’d have a special dinner halfway between them. For the last one before she died, I made my Parmesan-crusted roast pork chops and she made scalloped potatoes.

And, every Christmas, she’d bake a pineapple cake. Sometimes, if the psoriatic arthritis was flaring up, she’d ask me to bake it, but she always, always, always did the frosting. She was very particular about that. One year, she wanted a pineapple upside down cake. Neither of us had ever baked one. Oh the elation and feeling of triumph when it came out in one piece!

I remember one Christmas, we cooked the turkey roast and vegetables in the crock pot. This so we could lounge about, binging the entire first season of Bridgerton. It turned out really well.

What memories does your dinner, or breakfast, bring to the surface?