Mom and chicken soup -

[flower]

Hi everyone,  

I'm getting into cooking lately. Just made a nice chicken broth for soup tomorrow.

I wonder what it is like to have a mother one can trust? You know the kind that comes over with  chicken soup when you are sick?

Right up to the last time I saw Nmom I could never rest while in the same room. I am very uptight around her - always. I cannot lie down in the same room and watch tv and relax while she is there. I feel vulnerable. I always have to be "on". Ok - had to be - past tense - no contact  with her now.

When I had babies she came over twice to help -- once time for each kid. With my first baby she cleaned very surfacy and fast the bathroom sink and toilet with disinfectant . She was really angry as she did it. She had just asked me what she could do to help and I said she could clean the bathroom - it really needed doing and I had had a rough delivery.

The second baby, years later - she brought over some stew or something.  That was all.  Where I live grandmothers have a tradition of coming to help out while the new mom is resting.  She probably brought the meal because I told her that the ladies at my church were all taking turns bringing a meal a day to my house for two weeks after we got home from the hospital.

Speaking of cooking... What foods do you equate with love?  Do any of you who have no contact with N mom have problems using your mother's recipes?  I threw out the cookbook my mom gave me and bought another cookbook. How about you who have contact with N moms? Do you use your mom's recipes?

How about you in Texas? Discounted Girl and Moonflower aren't you from Texas....  What foods equate love there in Texas.   How bout you Seeker - What are the California recipes that show love. I think you are on the west coast - I'm north of the border here in Oregon- we have imported a lot of your state's excellent produce - is it the Imperial Valley that grows a lot ? but now it seems produce is being imported from all over the world. Grapes from Chile, apples from New Zealand etc.  

I imagine Chicken Soup is universal in the US as a caring food.  
What do those in Great Britain think of?  Australia?  Canadians? Other countries represented here?

[Moonflower]

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[bunny]

My older sister ran me out of the kitchen and I didn't learn to cook. I thought I couldn't - I had been told I didn't like to. And I believed this like a little child until in my 30's! Now I can cook and watch Food Network all the time.

Anyway, foods I equate with love....Jewish cooking with the onions and potatoes, carrots, gefilte fish, and brisket and chicken...and, for some reason, artichokes. My mom made those when she was in a good mood.

My fave comfort foods are scrambled eggs and (not at the same time) spaghetti.

bunny

[Anonymous]

Hi ya Flower,

Hmmm...well, this is an interesting question.  My mother is really great about helping out (don't hate me for saying that!   ).  She does everything.  It's my father who doesn't get involved.  But I'm not a big cook.  I did love to bake as a kid.  Everything from bread to cake to cookies.  Love it.  

For me to show love, I will bake you cookies   .  To receive love, hmm, don't know.  Anything homecooked.  I love potatoes.  Moonflower, I love empanadas too!  I know--it's my mother's gravy.  It's the best.

Sorry that I can't think of anything specifically regional that would do it (and there are so many ethnicities that answers would definitely vary).  

Funny, my kids love to cook and feel loved if I let them do the cooking.  (Don't hate me for saying that either!   )  They start singing to themselves and have a great old time.  I try not to hover until the heat comes on.  

Great question!  What else is served at the Love Buffet?  Bon appetit!  Seeker

[Ellie]

Regarding cooking your mom's recipes - I thought about that recently. I have cookbooks from fund raisers where you submit a recipe and they print it with your name. Needless to say, some of our family's favorites are ones with Nmom's name under it. I looked at that name the last time I was cooking something from the cookbook, thought about tossing it, then realized I make it better than her anyway! My kids love some of these recipes, but I have put my own flair to it.

One thing Nmom always did was to be stingy with food. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich had a thin sliver of peanut butter on one slice and a thin sliver of jelly on the other. All you could taste was dry stale bread!

She was like that with everything she prepared. If the recipe was chocolate and called for cocoa, she skimped, so I do not - I add more! And my cooking is SO much better than her's!

As for comfort food, H has brought many traditions to our family. His family is Italian so we have some excellent foods, whether we need comfort, love, or just some good eating!

I don't cook very many things Nmom made while we were growing up just because she didn't really try to make food for others to enjoy. She cooked to please herself, and she cooked to spare as much as she could. We were not wealthy but we were not dirt poor either. She just wanted to make everyone think we were.

A few years ago we took our kids there for a visit and she was fixing spagetti. She only had a tiny amount of spagetti noodles so H and I said we would go to the store to get some. She said only get an 8oz. package. H and I laughed because we cook a pound just for us and our 3 kids! She got mad and said we could only get an 8oz. package because that is all she ever cooks at a time. We said don't worry, we'll get enought to feed everyone. We brought back 2 one pound packages, told her she would have plenty for the next time. She was ballistic, saying we were wasteful! Funny thing was, she cooked the pound package and there was hardly any leftovers.

She always controled the amount of food we all ate, but stuffed her face when we left the kitchen. Ndad is diabetic and he got mad if anyone ate stuff he couldn't eat. He said we were tormenting him.

Yep! It was ALL about them!

[Overcomer]

Hey All!  Well, my mom was never a good cook.  I remember her trying to make some soup.  The woman didn't even use broth.  So it was water and celery and carrots and maybe some chicken and way too much salt and pepper.....yuck.

We always have Thanksgiving dinner at her house.  Lately she ordered a turkey from the local grocery (cooked by their deli....)  I remember one year recently we had about 25 - 30 people for Thanksgiving (several young men) and she got some small turkey.  Let's see, about half the people made it through the line and we were out of turkey.  Brilliant!!  Or she doesn't have mashed potatoes and gravy.  Our family went through a rebellion the year she forgot the mashed potatoes!

Suzy Homemaker?  No.  Baked Goods?  No.  

Uptight when she's around, yes.  When she comes over I spend all my time cleaning.  My house is always dirty.  I have two dogs and a cat and a 9 year old daughter that is a tornado - totally messy.  I work full time.  Haven't taught my daughters the art of being a homemaker - I was never taught myself.  Meanwhile mom has always had a maid.

[Portia]

You have such good ideas for threads Flower!

My grandmother’s apple pies (not very British huh?) - apples grown at the bottom of their suburban garden, picked by me and granddad. Happy memories. I still have the tin plate my Nan used for the pie (she’s been gone many years now). She made a thin pastry base and just loaded it with stewed apple, no pastry topping, just lots of delicious apple with sugar on top. I bought some apples and made a similar pie on the same plate last year. The plate is probably 50 years old!

Nan also made Sunday roasts. She’d give me beef ‘dripping’ (the cold fat and meat juices) spread on unhealthy white bread with salt and pepper. Gorgeous.

[Anonymous]

Hi Moonflower, bunny, Seeker, Ellie, Kelly, Portia and everyone,

Moonflower, Like that idea of the sharing recipes thread . (And that homemade peach icecream, yum! And those Ruby Red grapefruits from Texas - my favorite kind) Glad you have a nice mother-in-law - what a gem to take off work like that!

Any good recipes secrets for corn tortillas? Mine are always so little when I make them and they fall apart if I try to make them large. I had a press that some friends brought back from Mexico, but I'd rather pat them out by hand or roll them out with a rolling pin. I can make the wheat flour ones pretty easily.

bunny - Gefilte fish- I read that uses fresh water fish. We have a lot of fish here because of the proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Salmon is a favorite - Seems like people like the Alaska Salmon. Our neighbor was smoking some Alaska salmon in her smoker the other day - the smell was wonderful.

Hi Seeker,

    Sorry Seeker, I didn't remember what you said in cult thread about your dad and food when I started this thread!    Will you forgive me? Sometime after I read your post on the cult thread about a link and answered you about the link, I was ill and couldn't concentrate to read the board very well for a few days and was feeling really down.

 Anyway the reason I went back to read the cult thread was to see why I got the idea your mom is an N. I just remembered the tattling brother and thought of my Nmom's double standard of tattling - tattling was what I wasn't allowed to do. In this food thread, you said you have a Nfather and from what you say it seems that your mom shows love through her cooking. So anyway, you said about your father:

Just recently I was sharing with a sib about the Alpha N, actually the other way around. As I was listening, I heard a story about growing up that I had blocked out but remembered as I heard it. My leg started shaking uncontrollably, not just a jitter, but full on spastic movements, like I was in shock maybe? It was about how angry my father was that we "ate so much" and we weren't allowed to do that. I think I shook because it was scary to consciously realize that one of my parents didn't want to feed me. That we were competing for food, not sharing.  

 I was shocked and mortified to read what your post said about your father and food.    Well what your dad said about you eating too much sure didn't protray a good food/love connection for sure! Argh!

On this thread I asked you about what food signified love to you without even refering to your post about your dad and food. I must have looked callous. sigh... All I thought of was that you and Discounted Girl posted to that cult thread and I thought I'd start a positive thread for everyone and also ask for your and DG's feed back as a way of acknowledging your input to that other thread which became too depressing for me, the one who started it.

 I'm happy you have a loving mom that does nice things for you and that you feel safe around and that you have kids who cook!    We should celebrate our blessings. I happen to have a husband that loves to cook. He doesn't like doing dishes, but who does?

  I love potatoes too. In fact I like to chop up a potato or two or three - you know the big baker kind and make oven fries. It costs a fraction of the local Burger King fries price.

Any good foods for menopause? The serotonin level sure is dipping and I'm having memory problems, anxiety etc. It is getting embarrassing - I went down the street the wrong way in a car the other day and also questioned the librarian about the fine she charged on a book - my math was off - simple math. I forgot an important piece of information on an application. I used to have an idetic memory too -- menopause the great equalizer? humiliator?


Ellie

Good idea about how to keep using your favorite recipes with a mom connection. I guess somethings should be kept and reframed as our own. I must admit that I kept my mom's recipe for making rice because it turns out so well for me -  just the right moisture. I kinda think of it as like the DNA I have that is hers. Something that is part of me that I don't want to throw away, it would be too destructive to try to get rid of all traces of her in my life....and impossible. Better to just take things and add our own flair to it.

Kelly

That Thanksgiving where your mom ran out of food sure seems like an oxymoron! Usually folks have loads of left overs to give out to all the guests!

Portia

What fond memories of food. Good word pictures too. Ah, grandmothers.....

I can smell the beef drippings now... I had a grandmother similiar to yours. She was always was peeling apples it seems. She let me take graham crackers and make icing out of powdered sugar and food coloring and endulge myself with sandwhiches of crackers and icing. Do you call them biscuits over there and we call them crackers?  She always had candy around. I can still smell her potatoes and gravy...brings tears to the eyes.. Now that was love...
Closest thing to that smell is the KFC down the block venting out their chicken and gravy smells into the neighborhood.  Irresistable.

Any more food memories or ideas about food and love anyone?

[Moonflower]

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[Anonymous]

Hi Flower,

Oh my goodness, I wasn't offended at all!  The "food" story about Ndad was a typical outburst that reflects his type of thinking about us kids.  I'll bet in his mind we were sitting at the dinner table with dollar bills on our plates, gobbling it up in tens and twenties   .  Pass the Jacksons, please!

Your remarks about my mother are interesting (that sounds like I want to pick a fight, doesn't it, LOL?  "Hey pal, leave my mother out of this...")
But you may be on to something.  The real obvious Nness in my family is my NSIL.  Wow is she out there.  My Ndad is next in line, but he covers pretty well.  Next is the tattling pipeline.  Haven't really sorted that all through yet.  I can thank psycho SIL for bringing me to this board and for learning about PDs.  

Anyway, you are sweet to express concern.  I always find your posts very interesting and intriguing.  Please don't worry if all of us will relate, we'll chime in as appropriate.  Phew, time for some potatoes    

For menopause, sheesh, I'm glad you brought that up too.  I take lots of Vitamin B and spinach is supposed to help.  Laughing at stupid mistakes helps too.  I'm finally learning to let myself off the hook, because loads of people have had menopause before us!  So they know what it's like.    Take care of yourself.

Hugs, Seeker

[Cj]

I'm thinking Lucozade.  

I remember as a kid I loved being sick, I sorta think maybe its because it meant I got (had to get) a little attention I guess, or is it nurturing (back to health).  

[Singer]

Love this topic, Flower. Add me to the list of those with a non-cooking NMother. She was able to cook quite well when she wanted to, but that was seldom. Instead she prided herself on buying lots of meat - steaks or chops, but mostly steaks which were invariably served with a tossed green salad, bottled Kraft French Dressing, the old fashioned orange-colored kind that I don't think they make anymore, and a baked potato. That was dinner five nights out of seven when I was a kid. The meat was purchased frozen in bulk and there was always a bloody slab thawing on the kitchen counter until dinnertime.

Probably the steaks were proof to herself that she had made it, economically speaking, having grown up first during the Depression and later through the rationing of WWII. I guess I was lucky there was no stinginess with food although there was no creativity either. Once when my brother was in cub scouts she made a ground beef and macaroni casserole for a potluck dinner. That was the only casserole that ever came out of her kitchen and I didn't get to try it; it was delivered straight to the potluck which only my brother and father attended. I was very disappointed.

My earliest food memory was when I was about five. I had to eat a soft boiled egg every morning for about a year. I don't know why my Nm fixated on that egg because she hated eggs. In fact she would gag repeatedly while preparing it. With her control was the bigger issue. To this day she remembers with great indignation how my older sister would refuse to eat as an infant. She claims the pediatrician told her it was the baby's way of defying her. I can't believe a doctor would say that; I think she heard what she wanted to hear. Anyway she must have lost interest in the battle by the time I was born. The egg was the only stand she took with me and I ate the egg and tried to ignore the gagging. Funny thing is now I kind of crave one.

My Nmother is very disparaging about people who pride themselves on their cooking. She acts as though it's an inferior skill, as opposed to shopping I suppose. I'm a mediocre cook, but I love to collect recipes. To me they're like fiction, but I still enjoy reading them.  

Singer

[les]

Would love to jump in here too.  As a child, if I was sick I would ask for chicken and rice soup and as I got better a balogna and celery sandwich to dunk in it! (couldn't have been too sick)  We had a maid in my early childhood so nurturing came from soup, balogna, peanut butter and jam and a kind woman called Hilda.  She feels like my real mother in a way but we moved when I was 6 and that was the last time I ever saw her. I often wonder where she is, if she is still alive. ( mother never would say, if she knew)

My mother too didn't cook much.  I'm a lousy cook myself but beginning to appreciate how much others love a hot home cooked meal. Somehow my children grew to normal heights and weights.

We had a Sunday tradition of roast beef, potatoes etc.  My father would put a piece of bread under the roast to soak up the "drippings." The first piece was his, the second piece my mother's, then brother, sister and me.  It was pretty much just bread by then.  My siblings still remember this as a ritual that underscored your importance in the family - more blood, more status - quite primitive I suppose.

I have an outstanding recipe for chocolate brownies ( book club recipe ) that I will post here.  To die for...and you just might.. have the paddles standing by.

lol - recipes like fiction - that's it Singer - great reading. Now, how to calm down in the kitchen and get cooking. This is what I think I'd like to do.

I'd love to have one dinner that I felt really confident about that I could cook again and again for entertaining.



Les

[findingme]

being a native Texan, my comfort foods are Tex-Mex and chili.  cornbread & beans are also good...  

fm

[Singer]

Actually, Flower, at this stage I think I'm ready to forego the ground beef and macaroni casserole in favor of the Tex-Mex. The roast beef and drippings sound pretty good too, but I think I'll pass on the bologna and celery sandwich, Les.  

Singer