<p>I’m wondering if there are special, little things–that stir up warm and fuzzy, wonderful warm memories, emotions, etc. Here’s what I mean: My grandmother toasted pound cake for us when we were little, which we thought of as a special treat. She’s been gone for many years now and I’m sure I’ve never toasted a single slice for myself. Well, I made strawberry shortcake over the weekend and had some leftover pound cake. I popped a slice into the toaster last night and the memories of my grandmother came rolling back!! I can’t be the only one with this kind of experience!</p>
<p>Well, there was Proust and the madeleines his grandmother served him, that he dipped in tea . . . Talk about memories flooding back!</p>
<p>My dad used to lather up a slice of white bread with lots of butter, sprinkle sugar all over it, and cut the bread into quarters. He would hand these slices of heaven to us little kids while we were on the run, playing. Yum, yum.</p>
<p>Many years ago.</p>
<p>My dad made the most wonderful cinnamon pancakes ever. I can just smell them!</p>
<p>I apologize to all the previous posters for the way I scornfully closed this thread after initially reading it (and rolling my eyes). Just as I clicked off the page, I had a vivid recollection that stirred the very same memories that I had just scoffed.</p>
<p>When I was young, my dad traveled quite a bit. Sometimes, when he came home on the weekend, he would bring a leftover sandwich that had been sitting on the passenger seat, under his briefcase, all week. I’m sure it’s been at least 30 years since I thought about unwrapping the waxed paper and popping the smashed white bread, grape jelly, and margarine sandwich into the toaster.</p>
<p>Thanks for helping me recall this rare, special, and previously forgotten treat!</p>
<p>I think about my father many mornings as I make myself breakfast. He got up every morning and made my mother breakfast in bed (a matter of self-defense for all of us, as she was a witch until she’d had that first cup of coffee) and breakfast for me. My favorite was a toast and bacon sandwich, which I had yesterday. In the summer, he would fry up ripe tomatoes in the bacon fat (after breading them with a bit of cornmeal). </p>
<p>He died in 1978 and I still miss having breakfast with him.</p>
<p>Dad had a heavy beard and by night his 5 o’clock shadow was slightly rough. Before I went upstairs to go to bed, he would sit at the bottom of the stairs with me as I said my prayers. Then he would hug me. I can still feel the brush of those whiskers and how protected his hug made me feel. He died when I was in my 30s.</p>
<p>I hug my son (college junior) everytime we part. Always have, always will.</p>
<p>I have two.</p>
<p>One memory is of my Dad - he died about 15 years ago. He was a big gardener - even when he could barely walk (a former football player with lots of injuries/aches/pains) he tended a large garden - he was always especially proud of his tomatoes - every night in the summer he headed out to the dinner to tend the garden. </p>
<p>We use to take long summer trips in the car to visit family - with 4 kids, instead of eating many meals out, we would always pack the first couple of meals in a cooler. I clearly remember being at roadside picnic tables and my dad sitting on our huge cooler and passing out freshly picked tomatoes from his garden to each of us kids along with the salt shaker. You could tell he loved passing the fruits of his labor and a tomato has NEVER tasted as good as those tomatoes - out of hand, at a picnic table, with salt on a summer day.</p>
<p>If I happen to smell cigar smoke, it immediately brings back childhood memories of my grandfather…his cigars, wooden cigar boxes, my collection of old Dutch paper cigar rings that he’d give me, and his dark little house full of Persian carpets.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My grandma would make us cinnamon toast…the bread was cut into three strips…I’d eat the outside strips first…they had a lot of crust…but that middle strip was cherished! Of course, in my house, cinnamon toast has to be cut into three strips.</p>
<p>*It’s always such a bittersweet thing to remember my grandmothers. They both had pretty lousy lives…raising more kids than they wanted during the Depression, with alcoholic husbands…husbands eventually dried out and there was less dire poverty, but never nice clothes, nice vacations, nice furniture…always poor health care, both died young by today’s standards. *</p>
<p>We lived about an hour from my grandparents until I was in H.S., and that was even moving six or seven times (all told I moved 12 times before college.) Even after I became an adult and was in grad school (Purdue), I was back within an hour of my grandparents again. So … that was always “home” to me, in the sense that everyone has a location to come back to. Anyway, a favorite thing my grandmother would do would be to make these HUGE apple dumplings. They were the size of a dinner plate. And when just the kids were visiting (of course, no parents :)), G’ma would make these homemade dumplins up for dinner and serve them hot, with cold milk. I couldn’t believe that we were allowed to have this for dinner! Oooh … a little piece of Heaven came to earth. </p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>P.S. On the other hand, my g’pa (on my dad’s side), took crackers and mooshed them up in cold milk in a glass. Then he’d eat it. Blech! But boy I remember that … LOL</p>
<p>Papa’s home grown tomatoes sliced thin on Wonderbread with Miracle Whip and pepper.</p>
<p>Smelling cigarette smoke makes me think of sitting on the patio with my grandparents. They smoked for most of my childhood, until my grandmother was told that she had to quit or she wouldn’t live another two years.</p>
<p>My brother is 12 years older than me, and used to babysit my sister and me quite a bit. He would always make us tuna melts and banana pudding (the instant Jell-O kind) for lunch. To this day, I can’t think of tuna melts or banana pudding without thinking of my older brother.</p>
<p>There’s also a recipe for tuna noodle that I know by heart because I grew up eating it. Literally. My mother used to put it in the food processor and feed it to us as babies. </p>
<p>To go with the tuna noodle, we would take French Rolls and make the most delicious garlic bread I’ve ever tasted. The garlic bread+tuna noodle combo is comfort food for all three of us. </p>
<p>I made the tuna noodle shortly after I moved into the dorm, with much success. :)</p>
<p>My childhood special summer treat - a bowl of freshly-picked homegrown strawberries with a glass of ice-cold milk.</p>
<p>My grandmother always had some treats that we never had at home, but these were not home made. She had “Charms” candies, which were each individually wrapped and came in a metal can that I remember opening with a “key”. There was another hard candy in a can too - not individually wrapped, these were round (charms were square). but I don’t remember the name. She also always had double mint gum in her change purse. Even though it was not the candy that was so special, somehow because she always had something for us, I remember it well. I still have an afghan that she made which has held up well the last 40 years.</p>
<p>My dad was a man of few words. However, one time in college he sent me a card because I was feeling lonely. It said something like people are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. It was so unlike him to do something like that, so I never forgot it.</p>
<p>Once or twice per summer, we got to go to the drive in at the root beer stand and get root beer floats. Just thinking about them takes me back.</p>
<p>I enjoy reading this thread.</p>
<p>Another one with memories of cinnamon toasted in the oven and cut into three strips and served with a pot of real tea. I still try to do it for my kids from time to time. You need to toast them long enough that the sugar caramelizes. Especially nice on winter afternoons.</p>
<p>Mom wasn’t a stellar cook, but I recall made from scratch French Toast and made it on “special ocassions” when my S was growing up.</p>
<p>My grandmother’s speciality was grilled cheese with Welch’s jelly. She would make the grilled cheese and then put jelly on one side. My Mom’s is cheese souffles.<br>
I never could learn to make one the way she did.</p>
<p>I would go over my grandmother’s after school a lot when I was in elementary school. I would sit in her front room watching Amos & Andy comedy show and Popeye cartoons on the black & white tv. Grandma would always bring me a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of cold chocolate milk, which I would eat on a metal tv tray in front of the television.</p>
<p>She made the grilled cheese on one on those sandwich/waffle toasters that has a hinged lid that closes down, basically mashing the sandwich till it is about half an inch thick. The Nestles chocolate powder for the milk came in a tin with a round metal lid that you pried open with a spoon.</p>
<p>Makes me hungry just thinking about it.</p>