Home Cooked Memories

She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family. Proverbs 31:15

There's no place like home; especially when a pot of homemade vegetable soup has been simmering on the stove all day mingling with the aroma of freshly baked yeast bread warm from the oven! I've never met anyone who didn't appreciate a good meal, and cooking and baking is a simple way to make memories for our families and show hospitality to guests in our home. We don't have to cook expensive or fancy meals. In fact, some of the most comforting foods are the simplest things. There's just something warm and inviting about a home where something good is cooking in the kitchen.

I've talked to a lot of people who speak with fondness about the comforting food prepared lovingly by their moms or grandmothers, and many moms and grandmothers are famous among their family members for certain dishes. Nobody made pork and saurkraut like my Grandma Mitchell. She was also famous for her pumpkin pies and soft sugar cookies. Her chicken rice soup was known to heal the sick. My aunt was very ill following surgery for a large brain tumor and was unable to eat. Grandma smuggled some of her chicken rice soup into the hospital one day. My aunt was able to eat it, and from that day on started to recover. I still smile when I recall grandma telling me the story about smuggling her soup into the hospital. She looked at me with a sparkle in her eye and said, "I didn't think she was going to make it, but my soup brought her back!" My mom was famous for her vegetable soup, apple pies, apple dumplings, stuffing balls, and gravy. Nobody ever came close to making pie crust like mom, and even though I have her recipe for gravy and stuffing balls, I've never been able to duplicate it. My mother-in-law made the best fried chicken I've ever tasted, and I've never found anything that even came close to hers. They have all passed on, but the special memories of the foods they prepared lives on in the hearts of family members.

As homemakers, we have the opportunity every day to make memories for our families and guests. One day our children probably won't remember how clean the house was when they were growing up, how successful we were in our career, or how many things we were involved in, but they will remember coming home to the aroma of a home cooked meal and warm cookies straight from the oven. They will recall, with fondness and smiles, the blessing of home cooked memories.