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Friday, July 8, 2016

Comfort Food....

Tonight, for dinner, I had a bowl of steamed rice...and buttered oven toast...
It triggered a deep feeling about my childhood
and reminded me of this post I did a few years ago....

 This post is a re-run from 2012...
Some of my friends that were with me back then may remember...
my new friends might like to know about
a childhood SUNDAY SUPPER that has stayed with me all my life.


I saw a post.......trying like crazy to remember WHERE,
 that was talking about their SUNDAY SUPPER 
when she was a child.
She asked if we had any memories about OUR  
SUNDAY SUPPERS
and  I have a GREAT memory about that meal....

a meal that we ALWAYS had our family of 4, sitting at the 
kitchen table, TOGETHER.
We always had our meals at the very same time, every day and evening.
This is not an easy thing to do anymore....so many ballgames, practice,
school activities and a thousand other things.

My daddy worked as a machinist and my mother stayed at home.
She had a budget for groceries and she made ONE trip to the grocery store a week

If she ran out of something, she just waited 'til payday rolled back around....
which, by the way, was Monday.
I can't imagine why my dad was paid on Mondays but.......he was.

We ate goood....she was an awesome cook and being raised on a farm and knowing how to stretch dollars, 
she did an AMAZING job with the little bit of money she had each week.
This was in the late 40's and 50's and a blue collar man didn't earn much money...

Towards the last of the week, she got VERY creative with her meals.
Most were delicious....some....well.....lacked a little to be desired. :))

By Sunday night (after a wonderful lunch), she would reach for her
GO-TO meal.
REAL rice (not the Minute rice stuff) cooked to fluffiness...
served as a hot cereal...
butter
sugar
a sprinkle of cinnamon (mine was more a POURING of cinnamon)
milk......(I liked mine dry...)
served with OVEN BUTTERED TOAST.

Still to this very day, one of my FAVORITE COMFORT MEALS on the planet.
I always used a LOT of cinnamon...no milk at all...and lots of butter....still do. :)

I had NO idea, that a lot of times, it was all we had for that meal....
I just knew I looked forward to it every single week.
I had no idea she often cried, behind the bathroom door, because she
didn't have more substantial food to offer her family.
 
(Please.....let me say right here, that I've never gone hungry a day in my blessed life.
  I did go thru some hard times with my parents...
but,
as the years went by, things were better for us...and money not so tight.)

I also never noticed anything different from the way my friends lived.
Seems in the 40's and 50's, most people were "in the same boat"....all our dads worked blue collar jobs, our moms stayed at home, cooking, sewing and such.
We had a nice home that was clean as a whistle....
I had really cute clothes as Mother sewed for me all the time...
.and I was blessed with lots of great friends. 

I didn't know all the feelings my mother went thru about that
 SUNDAY NIGHT SUPPER
 until, not too long before she passed away.......

I made the remark that I was "hungry for one of my favorite meals",
HER rice and toast.
She had the funniest look pass over her sweet face....
and she talked about the fretting she did, those early years, over meals.
I think she even giggled a bit, finding out I counted RICE AND TOAST as
a high-ranking COMFORT meal.

Can I tell you how blessed I feel to have "mentioned" that meal in loving memory
to her....to have her know that, all those times she was fretting about the meal,
I was LOVIN' it.?

That, in no way whatsoever, I ever felt slighted.....or poor.....or anything
but unconditional love from a mother that cried because she had to
serve RICE and BUTTERED TOAST
to a family that loved her, no matter what.
(and can I tell you that I cried for two solid hours after writing this post?)
I WANT MY MAMA.....
OOO....and
if you are in the neighborhood, please stop in for Sunday supper...

we're having
RICE and BUTTERED, OVEN TOAST...

 1947
...my daddy holding my baby brother..
my mama
and moi
See how pretty my mom was....




sharing a very sweet email from a friend that I wanted to add to this post....



" I read your posts every day and love them.  I love your spirit, optimism, decorating talent, love for God and country, and mostly, love for your family.  Today’s post brought me to tears.  All I can say is “BEAUTIFUL"

Thanks so much..... 
linking with:
PINK SAT.

18 comments:

  1. what a pretty picture and what a BEAUTIFUL POST!! loved it. I eat my rice exactly like you do, but a little less cinnamon. It's how we had it growing up. It's comfort food to me too. I do make it once in awhile. And I hope you enjoyed your special and sweet supper

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  2. Oh my goodness I have been blessed by your post. You probably heard it the first time around in 2012, but I relate to every sentence. Thank you for sharing again.

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  3. What a lovely post and so wonderful that your favourite comfort food can be so evocative for you! The closest I've come to eating rice that way is having rice pudding.

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  4. A very heart warming post. Have a blessed day. Madeline

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  5. What a sweet post. I was raised in a large household and as I look back now, I realize Mom had to stretch stuff so far for all of us. One of our favorites was biscuits and gravy. Dad always made the gravy. Such sweet memories.!!

    Judy

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  6. Oh we both look back on some of our favorite meals from childhood and realize now that they were served for budgetary, not culinary, reasons. And to this day our favorite meals are big pots of beans cooked with ham hocks, batches of macaroni and cheese and soup made from 'leftovers' that always made the most interesting minestrone. At our house, it was Sunday lunch - a home grown roasted chicken with home grown potatoes or a big roast (we bought beef back then by the half and kept it frozen) oh yes, wonderful memories, BJ. Thanks for sparking them. xoxo J.

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  7. Such a beautiful memory. I hope my kids remember something similar about me. I remember my mom's roast pork - what a luxury that must have been for a single mom of three to serve on a Sunday. I should call her and tell her how much I appreciated that! Have a great weekend, BJ and stay cool!

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  8. Beautiful post of your favorite comfort meal, bj! So sweet. How wonderful that you shared that with your mom. I'm sure my mother fretted over trying to put meals on the table growing up. We had some very lean years. I remember a rice pudding my mom would make and we all enjoyed. Hope you have a good weekend.

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  9. Such a beautiful post, bj. I remember my mom making "toast in the oven" with hot chocolate on snowy mornings. I made that for my kids and I still love it. I guess that's like your oven toast. Sweet story!

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  10. What a sweet post - and so true that we never felt that we went without anything when we were young! I love how special foods bring back sweet memories (banana bread and scrambled eggs, individually, does that for me!!)

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  11. Since I lost my mother so young, I have more memories of my grandparents. They were just hard working and loving to us all.

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  12. BJ, I started crying as I read this..and more when I read that your mom cried. .You thought your rice was a good supper. We ate lots of rice with sugar and butter like you are saying. It was our food many times. We also had lots of oatmeal suppers. But as poor as we were ,we were fed, by our parents. Even though it may have been meager. I loved the picture of your parents with you and your brother. Bless your heart, xoxo, Susie

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  13. Good reminder bj ... we have not had rice with sugar and cinnamon in a log time. Had just about forgotten about it. We enjoy it and will try to fix it more often. I also love oven toasted bread.
    Feeling so sad today for all the killings yesterday and of late. Praying for happier days for our Country.
    Hugs,
    Audrey Z.

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  14. Monday is a strange one, I have Friday and Daisy has thursday. We got the freezer full so except milk and a few other things we won't need to go anywhere for awhile

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  15. Oh, BJ, I loved reading this post again. Memories are so very precious and our parents did the best that they could for us as this post points out. Love was and is all that matters.

    God bless.

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  16. I enjoyed seeing this again BJ. Something this good shouldn't be shut up in the archives. Precious memories, written in such a warm and loving way. Your Mama took good care of her family.

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  17. Amazing how memories " carry us through " . . .
    I remember there were tough times when I was young . . .
    Yet I never felt ignored, deprived . . . I felt I was first . . . best . . . loved . . . cherished . . .
    I would love to have my mom and dad near me today . . .
    Now I am crying . . .
    Beautiful post bj . . .

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  18. This is a beautiful post, BJ. So glad you reposted it. We never had rice with butter and cinnamon(except in the form of rice pudding). It certainly looks delicious. Growing up in south Georgia, we all loved grits and Mama would fix grits, with lots of butter, and eggs(usually fried) and oven buttered toast. Grits was not as expensive as many other things and, like the rice, it could fill you up in a hurry and stick with you through the night. To this day, I love having grits for any meal, any time of day. I think canned salmon must have been cheap in the 50s too and, sometimes, mother would heat that up with its liquid in an iron skillet and spoon it over each serving of hot grits and butter. It was delicious too! Grits is definitely one of my top comfort foods.

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