Unicorns and meals from the past…

I have been think­ing about grow­ing up lately.  Think­ing about Comma just makes me think about being a kid.  Think­ing about Comma also makes me hun­gry (even though I have been able to eat less lately…kids tak­ing up too much room, squish­ing my guts and stuff).  The meals my Mom used to make just sound fan­tas­tic to me…regardless of how absurd the ingre­di­ents seem

My per­sonal favorite what some­one in col­lege called “White Trash Spe­cial”.  I know…terrible ter­ri­ble name but per­fect food when you are poor.  Mac and cheese (from the box of course), a can of tuna, a can of toma­toes, and if you were feel­ing REALLY sassy…peas.  Mmmmm.…mmmmm.…hell, I think I sur­vived off of this when I was in school.

Stuff.  Yep, just called stuff.  Egg noo­dles, cream of mush­room, ground beef, Veg-All, and the absolutely nec­es­sary to tie it all together…pimentos.  Mmmmmmmmm.…..

Span­ish Meat­balls and rice.  A favorite of mine and my Dad’s.  What makes a meat­ball span­ish you ask?  Span­ish Rice-a-Roni.  Thats right through in some meat balls and a can of toma­toes into the San Fran­cisco treat and you have your­self some good eatin.

We did stro­gonoff, and spaghetti, clam spaghetti, soups, way too many steaks, salad, fried chicken, and Mark’s fan­tas­tic bar-b-que’d chicken.  Lots of great food, we were never hun­gry, but for some rea­son the cheaper casse­role things are just crack­ing me up lately.

Once sum­mer came it was BLT’s.  BLT’s at LEAST once a week.  We always had fan­tas­tic toma­toes and when we didn’t we could go across the street and get a gro­cery sack full of the best toma­toes I’ve ever eaten from Mr. Kyser for two dol­lars.  The bacon never lasted long but I loved just the LT as well.  Good toma­toes are a gift from God.  BLT’s and sliced toma­toes and cucum­bers.  That and sun tea and you knew the weather was get­ter warmer in KY.

It was the warm weather that sparked my BLT lust this week.  The week was really gor­geous early on and the bacon that Sherry got us called out to me. 

I took a chance, it was barely May, but I went out got some nice bread, some good leaf let­tuce, and two toma­toes.  Now I have always had a prob­lem with toma­toes in MN.  Call me spoiled but I’m not sure that I have EVER had a tomato in MN that is as good as one in KY, but these sur­prised me.  Great tex­ture, beau­ti­ful color.  I had to get the camera!

I told Sher­man we had a Uni­corn in our kitchen…good toma­toes in MN…in May!  He laughed at me and said it wasn’t one, that good toma­toes exist here.  This man has obvi­ously never had a tomato out of the gar­den in Louisville…give him time, I’ll fix it.  I wouldn’t be dis­suaded though.  A Uni­corn!  On my cut­ting board!  I snapped away.

Sit­ting down with our sand­wiches was very nice.  Per­fect bacon, great bread, yummy let­tuce.  Sher­man was right though…the toma­toes weren’t unicorns…they were more like a really good fake…the kind that showed up in pho­tos in the paper before it was shown that it was actu­ally a horse with a horn attached…

I should have known, those toma­toes were miss­ing the awe­some smell.  I hold out hope though.  The look was there maybe it is pos­si­ble that some­where in MN exists that per­fect tomato.

Tags: Childhood food, good produce, memories, MN has crappy tomatoes, new mom, recipes, tomatoes