favorite childhood memory?

You go from posting every day to taking a couple days off and people get antsy (I'm looking at you Ms. O, lol). I appreciate that someone noticed though :-)


I don't really have an excuse except that I didn't feel like it...and these days, that's about all the excuse I need. I had a wonderfully lazy weekend. Friday night we watched 4 straight episodes of The Wire. We have one disc left to go in Season 4, then on to Season 5...and then I'll FINALLY have finished the entire series after I saw my first episode 2 years ago. This show is awesome, btw.

But, my favorite part of the weekend was the cooking/baking i did. First up, I made chili - which was bomb! It was veggie chili with black beans, kidney beans, bulgur wheat, corn and some other veggies i had that needed to be used. Seriously it was so yummy...and I got a cornbread mix from TJ's (yes, i should have made it from scratch, but TJ's didn't have cornmeal...next time I'll plan ahead tho) and that made it even better! Nix and I have been buying different spices to expand our repertoire and I finally got to use cumin. You really don't realize how much spices add to a dish until you start cooking and experimenting. Cumin smells like tacos and tasted great in the chili. I didn't actually have chili powder, so I used some extra red pepper flakes and a bit of chili pepper sauce instead. The bulgur wheat was a really cool touch...it almost seemed like I was eating ground beef/turkey :-) (btw, i'm not a vegetarian, i just don't eat that much meat.)


I also made quinoa banana bread. Again, sounds funky, but actually quite good. If you haven't noticed, I like to make sort of unusual dishes sometimes. I know what regular banana bread/regular chili taste like, so i enjoy trying out new recipes - especially ones that are healthy. For those of you who've never heard of quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah), it was the staple food of the Inca Empire and boasts a ridiculous amount of health benefits - for example, it's a protein powerhouse! It's sort of like couscous, but way more versatile - I ate it yesterday as a side dish, and used it to bake a banana loaf!! I'm gonna make a few of my own tweaks to the recipe, and try it again soon.


As you can see, a large part of my weekend was spent cooking (and eating!). Nix and I recently re-discovered our love for cooking and baking, which was instilled in us from a young age when we would bake with our mom. I've talked about this a bit in a previous post, but i think it deserves revisiting. My mom LOVES to cook. Her cookbook and gadget collections used to be out of control...and now I know why! My childhood memories are somewhat limited (not sure why, very odd), but I do clearly remember baking with my mom. We would make cookies, cupcakes, muffins, cinnamon rolls, waffles, pancakes...all from scratch! My mom even had a mini donut maker lol. We had an iced tea maker, an ice cream maker, a bread machine, a flour grinder, a yogurt maker (at the time i thought this was gross), a pizzelle (italian cookie) machine...if it involved baking, we had it. My mom was so good at getting us and involved and letting us help her.

She also was really particular about using the best quality ingredients, no matter how expensive they were. And even though she would cut down on sugar, she never used artificial products. She's actually really snobby about "fake" stuff. One time she called a restaurant just to ask if they got their desserts from the freezer section of Cost-U-Less (the Caribbean verson of CostCo)...the person hung up on her. This is her go-to question when we go out to eat. She's generally a really picky/annoying (love u mom!) restaurant guest, but you gotta love that she appreciates real food and cares about what she puts in her body. A lot of her tips and cooking habits have passed down to me and Nix. Btw, a nerdy added benefit of all this baking? I know my fractions really, really well :-)

Basically, baking with my mom is right up there as one of my favorite childhood memories...it may actually be the favorite memory. I don't remember if I've mentioned this yet, but I'm going to spend the whole summer at home (in St. Thomas). I can't wait to cook/bake with my mom again. Nix and I are also planning to do weekly lessons with my Aunt (known in the family for her off-the-chain cooking).

What is your favorite childhood memory? Is there anyway you can recreate the happiness you associate with those memories? For example, my cooking reminds me of those times and makes me even happier. Did you know that simply remembering happy times from the past is a great way to boost happiness in the present????

Ok, for today's *big chune* you know i had to do something about moms right? I'm sure everyone's go-to "mom song" is by Boyz II Men (or Sizzla for all my reggae heads), but I like to be different so instead I'm going with Jah Cure, This One's for You. I'm a BIG Jah Cure fan...you'll definitely be hearing more of his stuff here.


But I also really like Gyptian's song, Mama, so yall get a bonus chune today


:-D