Mom's Cooking.

When mom visited me on Friday we got to talking about different things I ate when I was younger. Her favorite thing to serve us during the summer was pita bread with alfalfa sprouts, avocados, and just a sprinkle of onion salt. Yummy. Sometimes we would even have a piece of bread with avocados spread on it and the onion salt. It was simple but yummy. Thinking about it now, I haven't had it since I went out on my own. I think I will try to get some and have it again.

My mom was an interesting cook when I was growing up. She liked to try new things and sometimes it didn't turn out so well. There were lots of nights when we would end up eating PB & J sandwiches. But it was funny to see what she made and we got to experience some pretty unique food.


One of her disasters was Beef Tongue. Ewwww!!!! When I saw that on the butcher block I ran to the phone and was calling all my friends to try and get a dinner invitation because it looked creepy and icky. No such luck!

It was a very long dinner because it took all of us kids forever to choke that stuff down. Tough, chewy, and no flavor. Today my friends tell me it really is good and she probably didn't cook it right. Well, no thanks. I will stick with regular meat cuts.


Another thing my mom taught us was table manners and how to eat in different settings. One of those lessons was how to eat a formal dinner. She showed us all the different place settings and what all the different silverware pieces were for. This paid off one day when I went to the Marine Corps Ball.

Here I am at a table with a bunch of Marine buddies and their girlfriends. They were looking at all of the different silverware and looking mighty confused. It was funny seeing a large marine holding a tiny escargot fork with a puzzled look on his face. I told him that it was for the snails that they would be serving for appetizers. Now mind you these are big burly, macho Marines dripping with testosterone. ALL of them had a scared look on their faces. It was too funny. They never served it, but I wish they had. It would have been priceless seeing them try to eat that. I don't like them.

I spent the night teaching them what each one was for and it led to stories of dinner with mom and her lessons.