Good Eats

When we got married, my wife informed me that she didn't know how to cook. Of course, I loved her anyway and told her it didn't matter.

But it did.

Growing up, my mother cooked all the time. She baked Christmas treats until she realized she was gaining weight from mid-production sampling. She made strange Chinese food and green bean casseroles with crushed cracker topping. She baked red bean cookies and meatloaf. I am sad that she doesn't cook as much anymore, now that all the kids have left the house, but I will always have fond memories of the food we enjoyed there.

I used to sneak my Dad's cranberry juice after he had his kidney stones.

I also used to stuff my mouth full of food I didn't want to eat, excuse myself to the bathroom (with a full mouth), spit out the food in some toilet paper and flush it down. Yeah, I'm not proud of it, but it is what it is.

Despite all the complaining my siblings and I did, I secretly enjoyed her cold Ginger Chicken and Sunday Macaroni Soup.

Here are some of my other favorite things my Mom made, in no particular order:

- Pasta Carbonara (learned authentically from an Italian woman), which we called "Bacon and Egg Pasta"
- Zhong zi
- Soy Sauce Eggs
- Beef Tongue (just kidding - that was gross. Like french kissing a cow)
- Early morning hot breakfast waiting in the heated oven (I can't believe she got up at 5am to make breakfast!)
- Roast beef on rye
- Almond Jello
- Chinese Tapioca
- Turkey stuff with sticky rice and cooked with Chinese spices
- Lobuo soup
- Paperstick (inside joke)
- Bao zi

My wife's cooking now has tremendously grown since we were first married. We now know how to boil eggs, and some other pretty cool stuff too! If you don't believe me, just go here and check out the cool food she makes for us to enjoy.

Even as I type, she is making Molasses Spice Cookies (aka Gingersnaps). They are to DIE for.