Comfort Your Soul Foods

I have lived by what I learned from my Mom. My mom liked the convenience of minute rice and hamburger helper. These quick meals were interspersed with enchiladas or a roast for example. She used cans and spice packets in place of fresh herbs and spices in most cases because it enabled her to have dinner on the table every night at 6:00. We all had our favorite meals and she would make sure she made it for us by taking turns.

Mom wasted no time getting busy, I can explain this by the way she woke up and got busy. Her day started first getting his lunch and seeing Dad off to work. Then getting breakfast, fixing hair, and making lunches for us three kiddos.

Over the years, I noticed food can comfort, bring relief, consolation and reassure. Because of this, I always wanted a “hot lunch” at school. Because I was not aware of the comfort I got from knowing there was a “Dig-Dong” in my lunch. Also the reassurance my mom loved me enough to include the Ding-Dong was a relief.

The Ding-Dong was a shiny and beautiful, tiny, foil wrapped cake and I would save it to eat at the end. A shining example of such a small cake and what a huge comfort for my soul food it was! This memory makes me laugh, I don’t even like cake.

Happy memories always comfort, bring cheer and help us feel support. I find comfort for your soul type of foods bring more of the senses into play. Senses like our Memories, and Delicious tastes, Sumptuous smells and the beauty we behold. These things increase comfort for all of our souls

Mom didn’t like to cook!

The Mom I knew slowly disappeared. So did the comfort she dished up when she lost her ability to cook. At first she lost the ability to talk but it included all communication. She could no longer read or write in order to tell you something she could not tell. In the end she was diagnosed with Dementia which seems all to common these days.

When she was not able to cook anymore because it was dangerous, she confided in me that she had never liked cooking. This confession was such a surprise to me because of her consistency in everything she did. This included the grocery shopping to getting dinner on the table for example. I am pretty sure mom cooked for love, read more about this type of cooking here: https://comfortyoursoulfoods.com/2022/03/love-to-cook-or-cook-to-love/

I did not inherit my moms dislike for cooking, to me cooking is very relaxing. When something is going wrong, usually things in the kitchen go right. This always seems to bring the world back into perspective. Because when things don’t seem to be right, a pinch, a dash or a teaspoon goes a long way in changing things, whether its a pinch of salt or a dash of love.

More on food Here: http://www.healthpulse.org