Ohhhhhh, Mama!

It is a well-known fact that some moms are better cooks than other moms. My mom is a classic. Growing up, she was just about the best cook I knew--and I knew a few good ones. Her repertoire changed with the wind--after a trip to Greece, we had stuffed grape leaves and the like forever. Her cookbook collection was the envy of all, and her culinary skills were just amazing.

Me, I kinda fell into the role of sous chef. I had two things going for me--one, I was the youngest and sort of a mama's girl. I loved hanging around the kitchen, and spent a great deal of time chopping onions, peeling carrots, and stirring so many pots of roux that I can make them in my sleep now.

The second thing going for me was that I just loved watching people cook...not to mention eating the bits and bobs that fell into my mouth during the process. Yeah, my love for food and my love for cooking were indelibly connected.

The down side to this equation--and yes, there is a downside--is that I still show and understand love in terms of food. We made a reservation at August Moon yesterday for Mother's Day--because that is how we express love to Fey's mom. When Fey is feeling blue or hormonal or just plain grumpy, my immediate first thought is "What kind of chocolate can I get her?"

My mom showed me love last week by sending me a care package of her homemade peanut butter fudge and some Point Coupee roasted pecans. I need these things like I need a hole in my head, but oh, the love I felt opening that package! My mom's peanut butter fudge is a thing of beauty--the only fudge I will eat, usually. I can't stand the stuff most of the time, not even other types of fudge my mom makes. It tastes disgusting to me, and I just can't swallow most of it. But for some reason, my mom's peanut butter fudge is amazing--I can eat an entire pan of it on my own. Of course, that may have something to do with the sugar, peanut butter, marshmallow creme and other low-fat, low-cal ingredients. Or it may have something to do with the fact that, when we were kids, Mama would let us stir the pot, or the lucky one of us would get to lick the stirring spoon after fudge was poured (while the rest contented themselves with regular spoonfuls scraped from the side of the pot.)

I'm forty pounds lighter now than when I started this whole "eating right and exercising" mad science experiement, and I'm trying to find a way to equate love and acceptance and just plain feeling good with something besides food. I'm finding that I enjoy being outdoors a little more now, and that I have more energy to just be with the people I love, rather than eat with the people I love. Fey and I have discovered the joys of sharing a dessert at a restaurant (more on Equus' unbelievable S'mores in a future post), and there's a secret pleasure I've found in having to pack up leftovers and take them home for lunch.

I don't know. I think I'm evolving. I hope I'm evolving. I'm hoping that those pants I tried on for giggles last night will actually fit me in a few weeks (I didn't think they'd fit over my thighs, and they went all the way on--except really tight).

But just in case I don't evolve completely, I have two bags of Mama's fudge in my freezer for emergencies.