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Baking with my mom, especially when she let me play with dough for homemade rolls and breads, to making crepes and trying not to get batter all over the kitchen.

I loved McDonalds.

First pesto.

That sounds like a fabulous book!

My family would drive to the coast to get live crabs to bring back home, and then I would play with them in the yard right before my dad boiled them. Then we would have a huge crab feast, and my hands would be completely torn up by the end of the night. It was completely worth it, though.

in somewhat relation to the book above:

my fondest memory was tasting a fried crawfish po-boy for the first time in new iberia, la on a family trip to visit the place of my birth. between that and touring the tabasco factory it was an awakening of my love of food.

Eating the leftover pie crust scraps sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar

Mom's cooking, of course -- but also my first McD's hamburger in 2nd grade, envying my classmates' Lunchables and bologna sandwiches (ah, mom was so right), and the first time I made peanut butter saltine sandwiches.

We had three apple trees in our backyard, and we'd spend one whole weekend picking and sorting apples. The next weekend, we would make apple pie. The three of us girls would get the small knives, and we all cut up apples into slices. My mom would set up the pie plates, and my dad actually made the pies. He never measured anything, but it always came out perfectly, and we always had apple pie before dinner that night, while it was still hot from the oven.

Smock! It basically a big blob of fried dough cooked in oil and chopped up with a spatula while cooking until you have hundreds of nut sized pieces all fried crispy and served with white corn suryp. It comes from my grandparents in Manning Iowa, and is basically a farm dish, because when times were tough on the farm you always had flour, eggs, and milk on the farm.

Marmite on buttered toast in the morning... probably started out eating it just because my Mom did but later I realized how seriously delicious that salty spread is assuming you can restrain the gag reflex that triggers on smelling it.

My father's family is Lebanese, and weekends were for eating - and lots of it! I remember my aunt's house, bursting with food lined up on tables from the front door, through the living room and the kitchen, down the back steps and into the backyard - groaning with anything and everything you can imagine! Food, family, friends - it was all there in huge measure...

What my friends and I would eat for breakfast at my home on birthday party sleepover mornings: waffles topped with strawberries and vanilla ice cream!

When my mom was out of town, my dad would make my school lunches. They were pretty much the same as my moms with one exception. He would cut an entire apple in to paper thin slices and then put it in a plastic baggie as if it were still intact. I always thought that was so cool and the apple just tasted better than usual!

All my mom's family is from New Orleans, and her grandparents used to own their own Mexican restaurant. As a kid I'd go down there for the holidays most years for expansive feasts: crawfish boils, my great-grandma's pork tamales, king cakes, mirleton, fig cookies, and po-boys. Sooo much fried fish. Not to mention the muffulettas my dad reverse-engineered from the Central Grocery and went on to make for every Super Bowl party!

My dad's experiments with Maggie noodles.

Okay are you ready? Wait for it, "SPRAY CHEESE" love the stuff to this day. I do, however, feel a little dirty buying it.

Licking the beaters clean.

I love Cochon, just ate there on a trip to New Orleans this past weekend. Favorite childhood food memory has to be my mom making toast smothered in molasses whenever I stayed home sick.

I've always had a penchant for trying new foods. When I was 6, maybe 7, I found myself at a Bob Evans in West Virginia on the way home from Myrtle Beach. I hunted the menu for something that I'd never had before. After all, we were on vacation, it's a time to be adventurous.

I found it! Beef liver and onions. I'd heard that no one liked this dish, but I liked all sorts of things. I was going to need to explore this for myself. Well, the fight went back and forth with my dad. "You won't like it." "I will." "You won't." "I will." "If you don't, you're going to eat it anyhow." "Won't be an issue." "I'm serious." "So am I."

And thus, beef liver and onions was ordered. I do believe that my dad tried to make me eat it, but before I'd begrudgingly eating my second bite of this horrendous dish, my mom had passed me dad's meatloaf and he choked down the remainder of my dish.

Thanks, Dad, for not choosing that vacation to stand by your decision.

Tasting a fresh juicy peach from the neighbor's tree. Also, my grandmother's roast chicken.

Licking the frosting or cake batter off the mixer-also eating warm apricots off our tree.

My mother's lumpia. We would roll them together and then I would watch her from a distance as she deep fried them. It was especially hard to resist eating them once they came out of the pan.

Catching, then cooking fresh trout over a campfire at Baxter State Park in Maine. My favorite part of every summer.

My favorite food memory is making a "real" breakfast for myself for the first time. I found out that we had a Charlie Brown cookbook and it told you how to make french toast. I read that recipe dozens and dozens of times and I finally decided to make it for myself one morning. I asked my mom if I could make breakfast and she said that I could, probably thinking that I was just going to make a PB&J or a bowl of cereal. She was taken aback when she realized she was hearing sounds of me moving pots and pans around, but let me finish what I started. That was a lot of fun.

my 2 aunts and uncle visiting from California and me convincing my mother to let me make country time lemonade for them... what did i know, i was like 5 years old.

the smell of bacon frying and coffee. And grandpa 'sassering' his coffee (when the coffee was too hot to drink, grandpa would pour some into his saucer for a quick cool off).

My mother's then-boyfriend (now my stepfather) picking the mushrooms out of his spaghetti sauce after losing an argument to my 5 year old self about why I didn't eat mushrooms.

That's easy-every Christmas Day my mother would make a big pot of Spaghetti and meatballs (it's too long of a story to explain how someone from Glasgow Scotland learned how to make real Southern Italian cuisine by marrying into a German-American family).

Anyway, it seemed like the meatballs and sauce would simmer on the stove for days; I couldn't wait for dinner when we'd all sit down and gorge ourselves.

To this day I can't eat any other meatballs-not because of any loyalty to my mom, but just because they aren't nearly as good!

My grandmother's french toast. Whenever I would sleep over there she had to make that for me in the morning.

my mom's apple pancake, slathered with maple syrup

I always loved baking christmas cookies with my Mom for all of our neighbors.

My father making pfannkuchen and my mother making spaetzle.

My mom's red beans and rice, cooked slowly all day long, filling the house with that wonderful aroma that made you feel that you were at home when you walked in the door at the end of the day. That was my life every Monday.

my mom used to make me the most delicious french toast every saturday morning. it was the best.

So many to pick from from. But I think the first thing I ever learned to do in terms of cooking was bake cookies - from scratch, of course! There was no other kind in our house. Being the youngest and the smallest, I would sit on the countertop, my older sister would stand next to my mom in front of the counter, and the three of us would do it together, and then test them out on my dad. To this day, we still love to bake cookies together.

I loved the chile rellenos my mother made using a blow torch to cook the chiles.

My dad making gumbo while my Mom would sneak additional seasoning and ingredients into the pot when he wasn't looking.

Whenever my mom would make fried veal cutlets (or indeed, anything with a breading), she would mix the leftover beaten egg and seasoned bread crumbs and fry it up in the skillet in which she had cooked the meat; she called it a "bread patty" and it was my very favorite thing in the world to eat.

Funny, but even though I've made breaded veal cutlets dozens of times as an adult, I've never quite been able to make bread patties that taste quite like my mom's did. I wonder what her secret was?

a pig roast . mverno@roadrunner.com

char siu bao

Poking the middles out of cheese Combos and eating them before the pretzel exterior

Anything my mom cooked.

Hard boiled eggs spoon fed me from the old Greek lady who owned our building on the roof next to the bunny coop. Pop was stationed in Crete, Greece for the Air Force. Actually, Greek food in general is esconced as comfort food for me because of my early childhood.

Sitting on the floor with the family and eating steamed crabs with a lime juice+pepper+salt dip. Yum Yum. I especially like the crab eggs, they taste silky and rich in flavor.

Learning to go out to the back yard and pick asparagus from the asparagus patch and strawberries from the strawberry patch with my mom.

My Mom's cooking -- just simple comfort food like steamed pork with eggs, camaron rebosado, omelets, and Chinese lumpia!

Strawberry poptarts on early Saturday mornings while watching the Smurfs.

my dad is the cook of the family, so any time he went out of town my mom and i would have fried egg sandwiches and root beer floats for dinner. the only things she could make! so delicious and in my mind, exciting!

:)

Sunday's supper....pot roast & gravy....corn bread....veggies...chess pie...my grandmother sure could cook!

Whanever I was sick as a little boy my mom would always make me eggs in a frame......cut a hole in a slice of toast with a water glass and put an egg in the hole an fry till done.The best comfort food in the world,and now that my mom has passed away I still cant seem to make it as good as she did.She must have cooked this special dish with a whole lotta love !
thanks mom...xxx

we camped a lot and my favorite night was "hobo stew" night. i loved making the little foil packages filled with whatever delicious ingredients i wanted and helping my dad flip them on the coals. so much fun!

Cheesy, but the two treats my father always gave me were skittles and carrots. I was weird child.

My mother was a wonderful cook and my father never ate a meal without praising her. Our most special breakfast was "french pancakes", actually paper thin crepes served with real maple syrup and butter. We would eat them as fast as she could make them and since there were six of us, she didn't do it often. And the most special of all dinners was a a clam bake. We would gather an enormous pile of dry twigs, lay cherry stone clams in a grill and burn the twigs on top of them. The grill kept them closed so they steamed in their own juices. When you broke them open you would melt butter in one half of the hot shell and put your clam sauce in the other half. It was sheer heaven, especially when coupled with a fresh tomato salad, corn on the cob and ice box cake!

Eating supper with all the relatives. Then siting around the table chatting about our day.

peach cream pie. Literally just heavy cream, gelatin, and canned cling peaches backed in a graham cracker crust.

watching my brother eating straight butter. eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches with my mom (i like dill, she likes bread and butter).

cooking chocolate chip cookies with mom.

Fried chicken and cream horns (main course and dessert, not served together) at my grandparents house...I miss those days

Huge pot-roast dinners at my grandparents farm, always finished with sheet cake in an aluminum covered pan, Sunday dim-sum in Chinatown with my Chicago grandparents, my mom's toasted cheese sandwiches and my dad packing leftover turkey sandwiches (just plain old white bread, mayo, turkey and pepper) for my trips back to school.

Fondest childhood food memory would have to be my mom making us mac and cheese with peas from scratch. I still request it every time I go home--just isn't the same the way I make it for some reason!

Several things such as "rellenos de papa" that my grandma did, "pinon" that my grandfather did, sunday panckakes that my mom did, cuba libres that my dad mixed, and the holiday "lechonada" that my family held at the beach.

Nice memories that are no longer...

my dad making sauteed mushrooms with fresh parsley and sherry for on our grilled steak

My mother's homemade chicken, potato, and carrot soup.

Eating my grandma's homemade blueberry or strawberry perogies, or her cake torte's...yum!!

Making homemade onion rings with my grandma. They were the best ever. It was always a joy to cook with her and I try to make every dish I make taste like one she made. She loved cajun cooking, just as I do, so this would be a real treat to win.

Peeling a bowl of freshly steamed shrimp and dipping them in hot sauce infused butter.

I was always fond of wrapping wontons with my mother. She'd make the filling and I'd get a scoop, put it in the wonton skin, and seal the deal. And they always tasted amazing in chicken broth!

my mom making homemade pizza

Walking home from the farm truck with the bag containing the 1/2 pound of bing cherries I talked my mother into buying. By the time we got home, the bag was always empty. Hmmm...I wonder where they all went.

My dad had the chef at a restaurant come out and explain to me that the the fettuccini was actually just speghetti that had picked early. That was why it was green.

popcorn made on the stovetop with lots of melted butter

My dad always bought me this birthday cake that shaped like a pig-tailed girl's face every year.... I think he bought the same cake till I was 12. I miss the cake!

Christmas dinner at my grandparents' house - roast goose, stewed cabbage with vinegar, dumplings, cranberry sauce, vdolky for dessert.

grannys pierogis

My mom wasn't a great cook, but that didn't slow her down. We often had the visiting preacher over for Sunday dinner and Mom would fix fried chicken (which she did real well). Dad would pass the mashed potatoes and always embarassed mom with his comment: "Have a few potatoes, have a few more, have damned near all of them."

@djnewcastle; as a kid, thats what i would always order when we went to the Chinese restaurant - loved it then - not so much now

I have a couple. One would have to be my mom making homemade pizza every Sunday night when it wasn't hot.

Cochon=unadulterated awesomeness. My favorite food memory as a child is random...I remember going camping with my family, and my mom made these aluminum foil "pouches" to throw on the grill. They were filled with garlic, fresh herbs, shrimp, and veggies, and they were the most decadent thing I'd ever had. I immediately loved camping, and have been "chasing the dragon" to recreate that flavor ever since.

Honestly, it is the memory of my dad sneaking over to our neighbors yard and garden and absconding with a Beefsteak tomato or two a couple times a summer. We would slice it thick and put between sliced Wonder bread with a little mayo, salt and pepper. Unbelievably addicting, I remember the tomatoes were sometimes still warm from the sun..
I learned years later that our neighbors completely sanctioned my dad's "purloining." They were wonderful people.

Coming from a meat and potatoes mum, this is my favorite memory....sneaking into the kitchen and scraping out the mashed potato pot. Oh, also, I absolutely loved my Brit mum's take on chile con carne (for my Latino padre) Chile with kidney beans served over....what else??? Mashed potatoes!!! I love it to this day, but sadly can't get my Latino hub to like it.

the chocolate castle cake my mom made for my sixth birthday - there was love in every inch of that cake.

In second grade, my class had a "living history" field trip where we camped out on the beach in Tomales Bay, CA and lived like Miwok Native Americans. Some of our meals consisted of "acorn mush" and my first ever taste of raw and BBQ oysters, which I loved immediately while all the other second graders hate or refused to try them. I was the pickiest eater as a kid, wouldn't even eat pizza or spaghetti. so all the parents were dumbfounded. Oysters are one of my favorite treats to this day.

Visiting my grandparents during the summer meant I could eat whatever I wanted for breakfast and lunch. Usually it was ice cream sandwiches and pickles, supplemented by whatever fruit we felt like picking from their garden. I miss being able to do that.

one of my fondest memories is of making raspberry ice cream with my grandpa every summer. we did everything from pick the raspberries to churning the ice cream maker to devouring copious amounts of the glorious finished product.

Stopping under a bridge in NYC with my folks and buying hot tamales from a vendor with a cart. We bought hot tamales from a cart in Southern Illinois, too. I still love fresh hot tamales whether in Arizona, Hawai`i, Mexico or wherever! The ultimate comfort food for me.

Learning to cook as a teenager from my dad.

Every Friday during lent my folks would take the family to the local Howard Johnson's for all you can eat fried clams.

Do I have to pick one? I'd say a toss up between making sauce w/my dad on Sunday mornings, or sitting at my Nana's table eating bananas w/milk & sugar..they are still my go to comfort food!

Swordfish on the grill, followed by watermelon.

My dad would make Scandinavian waffles for us on special occasions. The best waffles ever made with sour cream and cardamom. They are still my favorite!

my mom surprising my sister and I with Monkey Bread! YUM!

Bread baking in matching aprons, and I don't care how dorky that is.

My mother used to make sweet rolls on Saturday mornings. Thank you for this giveaway!

My mother's meat and potato croquettes.

"chocolate croissants" (Pillsbury crescent rolls with chocolate chips in them) with my dad, NPR, and his copy of the NYT crossword every Sunday morning.

I remember my grandmother making dumplings out of flour, salt, and water for her bean soup. I wish I could recapture that flavor.

Hearing the ice cream truck drive through the neighborhood at the Jersey Shore!

when i was little, every morning i ate Eggo waffles with cream cheese on top. anyone else ever try that?

My mom making me mac and cheese.

For my fondest, for my parents, it started off as aggravation but turned into hilarity as the years passed. When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, we went to a seafood restaurant, and were handed our menus. When the waitress came to take our order, I stated that I only wanted food off the "Adult Menu", rather than the child's. My parents and I argued back and forth about how the adult menu was only a larger portion until finally the waitress felt bad for me and ordered me a dish off the adult menu for no charge. Little kid charm! =]]

Eating ice cream at the Bronx Zoo.

I remember making homemade mochi with my grandmother every new years eve in preparation for our New Years day ceremonies. It was a great bonding experience with my grandmother, my great aunt, my father and myself all doing this together in shared family experiences.

Grilled cheese with tomato soup on the side. I recently had some of that Campbell's tomato soup and it wasn't how I remembered....the grilled cheese still tastes as good though!

Picking zucchini out of our huge overly-zucchini laden garden to make zucchini bread with during the summer, home all day during summer vacation. Way to make lemonade out of lemons, I thought, since it more or less tastes like banana bread.

Sunday morning breakfasts with my Grandparents. My Pappy's dippy eggs and fried potatoes are the reason I cook and love food today. Good food should make you feel good.

I have fond memories of going to my grandmother's house for lunch on Saturdays. We always had Country fried steak, fried okra, creamed corn, green beans, sweet potato casserole, rolls and cornbread. I've never had green beans as good as hers.

My mama teaching me to make homeade noodles!

making homeade donuts, even if they were just canned biscuit dough with holes cut out that was fried and topped. we got the whole family involved.

Fresh Striped Bass caught off the Montauk shoreline. Cleaned and cooked the same evening.

My mom, grandmother and aunts always bake pies together around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they take the leftover dough and make mini cinnamon sugar rolls. When I was little, I was allowed (and totally thrilled) to make the cinnamon sugar mixture and spread it onto the dough. It was only cinnamon, sugar and some melted butter, but I thought I was the greatest cook ever! Now that I'm an adult, my eight-year old cousin is the cinnamon roll chef. :)

Homemade fries and burgers on Saturday night - which almost made up for the fried mush we endured for Saturday morning breakfast.

Going to my stepmother's house for real down home food. My mom didn't know how to cook, and since she was a single parent, we ate out every day. I looked forward to eating the food my stepmother prepared during the summers when I would visit.

peanut butter and celery
strawberries, milk, and sugar
fruit pizza

My mother would get up early and make chocolate chip cookies and she'd let me eat them fresh out of the oven for breakfast.

Frying batter-covered sticky sweet cakes for Chinese New Year's with my mom. She always let me do the fun part, which was to turn over the slices in the frying pot and pick them out when they were done.

Munching on buttered jiffy pop popcorn while watching football with my Dad.

Cold pizza while watching Saturday cartoons.

Being from New Orleans most of my memories are food related, but one of my favorites is when I was about 12 my mom let me and a girlfriend make beignets. They came out pretty good and we were so proud of them! We went to clean up the kitchen and learned very quickly that hot grease cannot be poured into a plastic container. We wouldn't let my mom in the kitchen and we "cleaned" up. I think that poor woman found greased all over the place for years to come but she never said a word. That's probably what made me let my kids have their way in the kitchen - including some truly disgusting food fights.

Mastering muffin tin meatloaves when I was 6. I felt so... ACCOMPLISHED! haha

The smell of fresh tomatoes always reminds me of my dad's garden he had while I was a kid. We spent lots of time out there.

The taste of fresh picked sweet corn from the garden. I once ate 9 ears at one sitting...I had a much younger digestive system then! :)

As a kid, whenever I was sick, my mom would always serve grilled cheese and tomato soup. And in the summer, dinner always revolved around tomatoes fresh from the garden.

My Hungarian grandmother's Easter baking...cookies, poppy seed rolls, nut rolls....sigh

Saturday night was homemade pizza night.

Brunch at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain, Boston. We weren't allowed to eat bacon in my house growing up. Pancakes and French Toast were rarities as well, so whenever we went to Doyle's, I was allowed to get whatever I wanted, and gorged myself. Their bacon was always perfect, too.

special mac and cheese casserole

My fondest food memory is of the first time I was allowed to "help" prepare an "appetizer" for a family holiday dinner: I got to stuff celery ribs with cream cheese. I felt so important and grown up lol.

When I was having a bad day or was sick, my mom would make me a bowl of rice mixed with soy sauce and butter. The butter would be melting slowly into the hot rice and I would eat fast so I could catch that last little gob of cool, sweet butter.

On cold Saturday afternoons, my dad would take leftover rice and boil it with water. We would sit on stools at the kitchen island and slurp it down together with lots and lots of spicy radish kimchi and toasted seaweed. He would tell me stories about his childhood. This is his ultimate comfort food and now it's mine!

Helping mom cook, especially getting to make those little "cinnamon rolls" out of leftover pie dough, or getting to do our own decorated mini cakes while mom did her larger ones (she was a decorator for years).
Pancakes shaped like turtles was a big one too, and canning along with her.

We lived a few blocks away from a cookie baking factory. My mom would take us 3 girls to the factory on many occasions. They had a little store where you could buy the imperfect cookies at a discount. They never looked imperfect to a little kid. Just delicious.

ice cream sandwiches that was part of our after school daycare snack rotation.

There are so many.
1. Mashed potatoes with diced up hot cherry peppers
2. Mom's pot roast and gravy
3. Pierogy
4. Fluffernutters
5. Fresh garden vegetables (every kind!) and fresh fruits from our many apple, cherry, pear, peach, and plum trees. Strawberries from our garden. Raspberries from my Baba's garden. I still kinda cry when I have to eat the crap from the grocery store.

Helping my grandmother and my aunt make meatballs... and them making me taste the raw meat mixture because 'that's how you know if it's good!'

Mom's Sunday roast chicken dinner

I was surprised to find that I have quite a few fond food memories, but have narrowed them down to the ritual of having Sunday afternoon coffee cake with my parents and grandparents: poppyseed roll or plum strudel.

Mom's lasagna

Often on Sundays, mom would cook a roast beef to a perfect medium rare and serve it with mashed potatoes, gravy, and string beans. My sister would either feed her beans to the dog, or remove the cap on the end of the formica table's chrome frame and hide them in there (alternatively, depending on the circumstances, the baseboad radiators were an option), to be found dessicated at a future date

coming home from lacrosse practice and having turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and peas. Just comfort food after a tiresome, yet enjoyable practice.

Hot cheerios -- warmed up in butter, garlic powder and worcestershire sauce -- great for tv watching.

my moms fried chicken livers and onions

Getting french fries and/or a small chocolate soft-serve cone whenever my dad ran errands in the next town (7 miles). We always made sure to finish them before we got home so mom would never suspect.

That and one day when my mother made her Liver and onions... for so many years my sister and I would barely eat it but then we learned to like it. My mom, not anticipating this new found appreciation found for the first time she had not made enough food. We all had a good laugh. Then had to order pizza.

One word: Cornbread.

Lots of memories tied to food, but probably the fondest is seeing my Grandmother greet us with a bowl of "scratch" banana pudding in her hands, have never made or found a taste that equals.

Swiss patty melts and clam chowder in a cup at the Friendly's with my Dad on his visitation days.

my mom's homemade dumpling soup when i was sick.

My older brothers always ate the good flavors of instant oatmeal before i had a chance, so my G-Ma would squirrel some strawberries-n-cream away for me!

I used to eat pieces of potato bread covered in butter while at my grandparents' house.

You know those Rice Crispies commercials where the mom pours milk over the cereal and tells her kids to listen? Well, my dad used to do that for me 20 years ago, and it still makes me smile!

Getting to choose whatever dinner you wanted on your birthday -- mine was always spaghetti carbonara.

My mom's homemade pierogis with melted butter, onions and sour cream!

Chocolate pistachio bundt cake

baking cookies with my grandmother for our tea parties

My family and all of our relatives use to descend on my great-grandparents farm for Sunday lunch. Hot dogs and pickles were always served, but my favorite part was seeing all my cousins, aunts and uncles.
smchester at gmail dot com

making dumplings from scratch with my grandmother: the smell of the filling -a mixture of meat, dried shrimp, mushrooms - wafting through the house; sneaking addictively delicious spoonfuls of it into my mouth; rolling out the dough; and trying but never succeeding at folding the dumpling's edges as well as my grandmother.

My grandmother's Sunday meal - Finger lickin Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes that were just too devine, snap beans that were just awesome, flaky homemade biscuits.

My mom making grilled cheese sandwiches.

I have many many fond food memories. We lived with my grandmother, and she made some pretty incredible - but simple - food. My favorite was her barszcz (Polish borscht), bright fuchsia and chock-full of tender nuggets of pork. And I always was happy to smell the onion-smothered kotlety (pork hamburgers) fragrance wafting upstairs to our third-floor apartment. Oh so many more...and my Dad's attempts at making Chinese food were pretty memorable as well....

We used to have neighborhood fish fries with homemade ice cream!

My family are all vegetarians. When I was little, my mom's favorite thing was to imitate foods from other cultures than our little country hometown. We'd spend hours in the library every weekend looking at recipes and pictures of food from all over the world and then recreate them at home. We'd spend entire months fine-tuning one cuisine and then another. My favorite memory is of making focaccia bread for a neighborhood bake sale.

We spent two days in the kitchen when I was seven covered in flour and pressing buttery fingers into the doughy tops of each loaf. When we brought the individually wrapped, rosemary-topped loaves to the bake sale, we had to answer question after question about the bread as most people had not seen focaccia before. We sold it all in an hour. It was a lot of fun and I loved being a little kid, but being asked all of these serious questions about cooking that I knew the answer to.

Ever since then we've been asked to make focaccia for almost every family or community function.

Wow, this is hard. I'm from New Orleans, and we don't remember our holidays based on presents or events or people - instead it's "remember that year Aunt so and so made the Asian turkey for Thanksgiving?"

That said, it'll have to be making "donuts" with my dad when I was a kid. He'd fire up the old fry-o-later, or whatever that thing was called, and we'd use the tops of 2-liters to cut holes in the middle of the canned biscuit dough. After they wre fried we took a paper bag with either powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar inside and tossed the hot donuts in it. Fantastic :) And we has SO much fun shaking the bags. I'm going to have to get a deep fryer some day, just so I can do that with my kids.

when i was little my grandmother would make the best home cooked food. she would make meatloaf, biscuits, fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, okra! she was amazing.

Tuna noodle casserole- yummy!

picking blueberries and eating most of them.

Karo syrup on white bread!

Sloppy Joes

I've been stuck on this for a couple of weeks now---that 'refrigerator cake' made by layering chocolate cookies with whipped cream +...frozen & cut on an angle so's you'd got black and white stripes. This made coming back from detention worthwhile.

My fondest childhood memory would have to be catching dragonflies in my backyard & crushing crawfish piles in the yard. Our backyard was so wild & crazy & overgrown, we could do anything out there!

My grandmother was the cook in our family and I watched her cook every day-good solid German food the likes of which I have not had since her death many years ago. She put a lot of love in her food. I can still taste her butter beans and vinegar-yum!

Where to begin? Licking the beaters after Mom had made her chocolate Devils Food cake or chocolate chip cookies; my Grandma's kishka; fishing with my Uncle Sam and eating the bounty for dinner; bagels from Kauffmans on Devon every Sunday morning; hot dogs from the Vienna stand down the street or at Wrigley field; picking rhubarb from the backyard for Mom and the resulting pie; my Dad's scrambled egg sandwichess whenever I was sick....... This is amazing; I haven't thought so specifically about these things for decades! Great contest!

My Dad would make chocolate chip cookies after we went to bed. But he'd always leave one on the counter for me and each of my brothers. And we got to eat them for breakfast. One of my favorite memories, food related or not...

Grilled shrimp at the beach.

From my childhood, which was a long time ago, has to be seeing Justin Wilson cooking on PBS, his accent was so intriguing, and what he was cooking was so different than what we had ever seen, I was born in the north. Never as a child was I able to taste the cajun style of cooking, now as an adult, I just love the food. I have been to New Orleans only once and was able to eat at Nola's, Emeril's and several of the small food places. I can not wait to return again.

My grandfather making manicotti from scratch every Sunday, alternated occasionally with homemade (huge!!) Sicilian pizza. The smell of the pizza dough rising and the pasta dough cooking are two that I'll never forget.

Everytime my sister or I got sick my mom made hot and sour chicken soup and recently tom yong gai . And whoever wasnt sick had to help out. Now that I live alone I swear the only time i feel better when I get sick is when i have some hot and sour soup.

getting to have homemade chocolate chip cookies after breakfast at grandma's house :)

We called it milk toast when we were kids - toasted white bread, lots of butter, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, covered in hot milk - yummy!

my great grandma's meatballs, I just made them the other day after reading this prompt.

Baking with my mom -- everything from Chinese steamed buns and dumplings to her amazing lemon squares (made with lemons from our Southern California backyard).

Eating maple brown sugar Cream of Wheat on a cold winter morning under the kitchen table next to my dog and the radiator.

my mother's thanksgiving dinners... legendary.

"Pies and Fries Night"---The time when my beleaguered mother was away at night school, and my father was left to cook, (or possibly burn), frozen pot-pies and tater tots. I can still smell the smoke, and wish the conversations were as pleasant/present. Sometimes you can never go back....

Sitting on the kitchen counter at my Grandma's house and helping her bake all of her yummy goodies from the time I was toddler til I was around 20. She was the most wonderful lady in the world and I learned so much from her!

I loved my dad's homemade chocolate mousse for our birthdays. Delicious!

My dad (much to my mom's horror) would basically designate the weekend "American junk food" time: cheap frozen pizzas, Taylor pork roll sandwiches, and his special bacon sandwiches. For special occasions, my mom would cook lamb curry for dinner. Yum - it's still my favorite.

Sharing a tin of sardines with my father on Saturday nights when he got home from the plant. Crackers, onion and tomato slices. He said this food will make you smart.

Sitting in the warm earth of my Grandfather's garden, while he used his pocketknife to slice us pieces of whatever he had just harvested.

FRIED SALT PORK ---My dad, as a late night snack, would soak some slices of salt pork in water for a while, then dip them in a batter and deep fry them. Yum! Healthy, too, eh?

Fried shrimp on Fridays during Lent

Making buckeyes and watching the paraffin melt (hey, I know but this was the 60's).

Two slices of cinnamon toast on a baking sheet under the broiler.

Crockpot oatmeal with dried fruit, walnuts, brown sugar and real maple syrup.

Watching my grandmother bake make her strawberry pie then giving me a big ole piece with tons of whipped cream !!

My Mom still makes fried dough every Christmas morning.

Every Saturday night my mom made hamburger, french fries and baked beans.

I can remember when my mother would make homemade pies and she had some of the dough left over and she would roll it out and put milk, cinnamon, sugar on it then roll it up, slice it doen and sprinkle sugar on it and bake until golden brown. That was our treat after supper. That was over 50 years ago and I did the same thing for my kids and now grandkids. Thanks for a great giveaway I would love to win this recipe book.

emeri49@aol.com

We didn't cook from scratch much when I was a kid, but a favorite childhood food memory is baking Bundt cakes with my mom. We would make them out of Bundt cake mixes (remember those?) That was one of the first things I learned to bake. Those were the good old days.

Thank you.

My favourite memory from childhood is every year we woud have the whole family come over for hot-pot. It was such and exciting time and a variety of food as each member would bring something different for the hot-pot. It was a surprise to see what would be cooking.

My fondest childhood food memory was Thanksgiving at Grammy's house. Though Grammy was not much of a cook and we would have canned gravy, instant mashed potatoes, canned sweet potatoes and in those days, (late 60's) none of those products were good. But, eventhough the food stunk, we still had a good time. Thanks for a great giveaway.
PS: Sorry Grammy, I'm sure your a first rate chef for the angels.

We hardly ever went out to eat so I remember when the whole family would go out for a birthday at Bill Knapp's, it was a HUGE deal.

My grandma making us oatmeal.

fondest memory is making blueberry muffins with my grandmother

My mom's plum dumplings..........

I remember my Grandmother making biscuits in the kitchen and helping her out.

My fondest memory is of my step dad trying to cook crab like my uncle. The crab would be crawling all over our kitchen sink before being put into the big pot on the stove.

baking with my mom

My Nana's grilled cheese sandwiches and coconut candy. Love the memories.

Mom's making pancakes on Saturday morning.

My fondest childhood memory is the burgers my grandpa used to cook. He was a cook on the iron ore boats back in the day and he made one mean burger. Delicious.

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iced_coffee
foodshethought
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