Memory Monday - You've Got Good Taste

I recently finished the LOAD212 Past Perfect Challenge in February. Most of the prompts dealt with reflecting into the past. They were great and generated a lot of ideas for layouts or at least for memory keeping. I wasn’t prepared to do a layout for all of them as I didn’t have photos, didn’t have the time or it didn’t interest me. Since I am moving more into the memory keeping aspect I thought I would follow up with the prompts in a Memory Monday type of post. I’m recognizing that my time for scrapping is limited and that I don’t necessarily want to have an actual layout for all of these memories. I do however, want to record the memories.

Hopefully this will be a good compromise.

Onto prompt number 1. “You’ve got good taste”. My take on this prompt is to discuss my favourite tastes and foods – favourite recipes, restaurants, unusual tastes and special meals. So let’s go through the food groups shall we?

Starting of course with dessert (that is a food group isn’t it?) – my favourite would have to be my mom’s pumpkin pie. Served cold. Preferably with whipped cream. Mmm yum.

I do need to get the recipe for this.

A close second would be my Nan’s brownie recipe. With walnuts. Yummy. And icing of course. Third would have to be my mom’s chocolate wacky cake. We always had this for our birthday celebrations. It is a good basic chocolate cake.

My favourite meal is beef stroganoff – again, the way my mom makes it and how I now know how to make it. It turns out quite pinky because of the tomato paste and sour cream and I like to have it with egg noodles. I also like to have it with peas because hey, the green is just a nice complimentary colour and it mixes well with the meal to make it a casserole-type meal (I like to mix everything together on my plate when I can).

My very close second favourite (and only second because it is expensive and limited) would be lamb. Of any sort. We usually have a roast lamb at Easter time. Soooo good. My mom used to make lamb chops a lot as I grew up and of course a lot of restaurants serve rack of lamb. All are great but I prefer them fairly simple – just rosemary seasoning and mint sauce to garnish. It is not a favourite with my family now so we don’t have it a lot and unfortunately I haven’t found a restaurant that serves it the way I like.

Veggies? I pretty much like them all. Fruits? I would love to just buy local but I don’t think I can go without my banana and orange each day. Unfortunately they just don’t grow here in the great white north. I’ll never forget the experience of going outside our “O’hana” in Hawaii and picking fresh oranges off the tree and eating them and there. Amazing! Apples, grapes, pineapple, blueberries, strawberries; you name it –awesome, especially when put into a fresh fruit salad.

Continuing on the topic of food, my favourite junk foods totally range. Some days it is chips or popcorn with salt & vinegar seasoning or it is chocolate of some sort.

Chocolate covered almonds, skor bars, dairy milk. All good. Sour soothers are always a favourite when the right ones can be found. Preferably a little stale. Wine gums are awesome – again if it is the right kind and if they are on the hard or stale side. I believe they are no name brand – not the ones with a logo stamped into the candy. No way. Hot tomales and mike and ikes are popular too. And you wonder where our kids get their sweet tooth from.

Moving on to drinks I would have to say that I reach for water the most. I used to prefer room temperature but now I don’t mind cold. I still prefer no ice though. I am not a lover of hot drinks so no coffee or tea for me. Occasionally I like to have a hot apple cider but that too is only a few each year. I have to admit that I love a cold coke. It would be my pop of choice but the odd time I like a cream soda or orange to mix it up. I used to love a little rye with my coke but not so much anymore. I don’t mind the odd Baileys irish cream – especially after skiing. Yum. A cold apple juice is great with breakfast but I am trying to cut down on the extra sugar. Usually it comes back to water.

Favourite restaurants? I would have to say I like the independent type of restaurants that serve up a variety of meals. If I can find a place that serves a good Greek salad you can bet I’ll be back. Casa Mia is one of those places. Their spaghetti is amazing and very reasonable so we will often get it for take out for the whole family. I would grab a Greek salad any day. Their souvlaki is definitely a favourite and they even do lamb pretty well. I like to try different things each time unless it is a regular place like Swiss Chalet.

No unusual tastes come to mind – nothing that people turn their noses up at me for (I think). Some people think my peanut butter and banana sandwiches are a little weird but I don’t think they are that extraordinary.

There you have it. All of my tastes and favourites when it comes to food.

In a nutshell. (albeit a big one).