Pizza Night, '70s Style!

It seems that lately there has been a lot of discussion about food on the blogs I frequent. We all love food, don’t we?

I felt like I should share what was one of my favorite meals growing up. Coming from a low to middle class family, we didn’t go out for dinner a lot, so we found ways to get around that. We made what we couldn’t afford to go out and buy as often as we’d have liked.

One of the best things that my mom made was Pizza. She used Appian Way pizza crust mix, which came with a can of pizza sauce, and we would make 2 or 3 pizzas at a time. These were awesome. They were big rectangular pies because she’d use cookie sheets to make them, and it often turned into a bit of a family effort. I think having these pizzas might have made me like foods that kids don’t necessary like – things like mushrooms, green peppers and olives. We all got involved in the building of the pizzas and so we had a personal interest in them and wanted to see if the ones we helped “design” came out good.

It was a special night when we had pizza for dinner, because we usually got to have pop with it. Pop for dinner – or anytime for that matter – was a special event. And, since it was so different than our normal dinners, we used to be able to eat out on the picnic table in the backyard, or around the counter island in the kitchen. It was very memorable and special because of how seldom we did it.

…funny how things like that help us to really appreciate our families and the simple lives we had growing up.

Christmas Memories - The Day

I am on vacation. I am spending Christmas wih my family and with my wife's family. This is how we spend Christmas. A few days and up through Christmas Eve with my family, and Christmas Day and a few days after with my wife's family, only 60 miles away from each other. We leave the confines of home and our little corner of the world to visit family and spend time in the areas we grew up and had our early Christmas's.

I have realized that as much as I love keeping up this blog, I do enjoy vacationing and am not much for using a laptop. I'm writing on one now, but I probably won't do another entry until next Tuesday. So - I pray that you all have a very Merry Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ, and that you have wonderful times of visiting with and enjoying your families!

Christmas Memories - The Food!

Where would a discussion of Christmas be without bringing up the food?

There’s so. much. food. When I was young, we had a bunch of family… including Grandmothers, aunts, uncles cousins, etc… there was about 20 of us that gathered every year. We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve so my mom drew the line at dinner, and we would actually go out for dinner. Before you think that we were rich, I need to let you know that we would go to the Royal Fork – which was a family buffet restaurant. Everyone could eat whatever they wanted for the same low price. This was especially helpful when we started having a fair amount of teens in the mix.

So – we’d go out and pig out and then come home to a huge layout of Christmas treats. Tons of sweets, different salads, sausages, little dogs in bbq sauce, candy, rolls, pies, cookies, etc, etc, etc.

There are a few dishes that were always the standouts. My mom’s fudge is still – to date – the best fudge I’ve ever tasted, homemade or store bought. Smooth as silk, never grainy and so chocolatey! And – my mom’s shortbread was also the best I’ve ever tasted. There were so many incredible things there – and many of them we only got once a year – so we HAD to eat at least some of everything.

We’d spend the next few hours just snacking and snacking and snacking. As always, we started opening Christmas presents at midnight – that’s right – midnight. And each person opened their present’s one at a time. We wouldn’t finish until like 3am. We’ve changed this in the last few years so now we finish up by midnight.

But – we’d spend the next few days eating all the great leftovers What great Christmas food/treat tradition memories do you have?