Favorite Foods

This time of year I love to eat comforting food that are warm and soothing. Ice skating and skiing and outdoor activities in the mountains tend to make one hungry and ready to indulge in food and drink. A cup of cocoa with whipped cream, a soothing cup of tea, a bowl of soup, a hearty stew… and then here comes the sweet tooth with delicious pies, cakes, and holiday treats we all love to share with family and friends. What is your favorite food? Is it a seasonal vegetable or fruit? Where is it grown and what is your history with it? Is it a childhood favorite eaten on holidays and special occasions? Is it a comfort food you make to soothe yourself? Did you eat it in a foreign country and is there a history attached to the food? It could also be a meal you had that you never forgot nor could duplicate. Merry Christmas to all our families and friends. May we be grateful for the meals we all share and eat together. Take time this season to indulge in your favorite food as a gift to yourself.

Chipeta
I really love crepes. I love the inside of the crepes and how they are made. They can be used for anything and reused again. They last a while. I was pretty young when I started eating crepes. Mom made me crepes. She made the insides with fruit, spices, and cottage cheese. She made the crepe with eggs, flour and milk, very thin. We ate Swedish pancakes—blintz, made with cottage cheese, nutmeg, and cinnamon. And what about huckleberry syrup! With fresh milk from our own dairy cow! Every summer we took a trip to the top of the ridge hill, a place full of huckleberries. The huckleberry is a cousin of the blueberry and found mostly in the wild. We would camp overnight and pick the next day. It is an area near Glacier Park, Colorado, called Hungry Horse Reserve.

Weaver
My favorite food is soul, family, deep-rooted food from the south. A warm banana pudding. My mom made it for my birthday and it came out every Thanksgiving. Bananas mashed up, vanilla wafers, baked in the oven. Yum! My mom’s recipe from North Carolina. A southern dish for sure. I was raised on this. Black-eyed peas for good luck. It was very sweet.

Sally Sue
Florence, Italy: 15 years ago. We went out to dinner at 6:30 p.m. No one eats till 9 p.m. so no one was there. We were completely alone. The dish was bow-tie pasta with artichokes and a Parmesan sauce. The whole environment was amazing. When we left the restaurant, it was packed. So memorable. As I get older I lean towards dairy-free, and gluten-free and could not eat that now, so it is a fond memory. I can’t duplicate it ever because it was in Italy. A small restaurant with amazing smells, it was that good. The magic of it was the place, the smell, the aromas, chunks of fresh artichokes that melted in your mouth. The flavor was simple but memorable.

Fiona
The first thing that came to mind was mango. Mango season, March to June, July in Central America. So cheap, everywhere, crates of them. I love them in salads, desserts, salsas, and smoothies. I do not eat them all year long. Mangoes are specific to the place and the season to taste good. In California they bring mangoes from Mexico.

Holly
Potatoes, love potatoes right now. I like baked potatoes best, or roasted potatoes with green chili on them. I love garlic mashed potatoes, sometimes with wasabi. I like potatoes for any meal, I am influenced by my English/German lineage. I grew a pathetic crop of potatoes in my garden. They did not produce, too much shade, I think. When I lived in Montana we grew a huge crop of potatoes. My mother was one of the most boring cooks. Meat, potato, or rice and a frozen vegetable. Her mother was a great cook—that was the funny thing. All my siblings are good cooks. I have never screwed up a potato dish. They are really nourishing.

Billy
Grapefruit—a childhood thing. We are coming into grapefruit season, Florida, Texas, and sometimes California. In the beginning of the season, we had grapefruit, growing up. Every morning cut into little triangles with a grapefruit knife in a bowl. We would only eat it fresh, sent from my uncle in Florida. He sent us boxes of different kinds, ruby red, pink, and white ones were the main assortment.

Arthur
I love seafood chowder, especially clam chowder, a common dish by the 1700s. I grew up in New England near Massachusetts where some of the best coastal chowder is made. I remember as a kid at low tide digging for clams and eating them raw then and there on the beach by the ocean. There are many types of chowder, depending where you are in the country. New England clam chowder and Manhattan chowder are well known versions, New England being my favorite. There are variations of chowder. New Jersey chowder adds bacon, light cream, and creamed asparagus seasoned with celery powder and parsley. Rhode Island chowder eliminates the creamy base and is made with a clear broth. Mirorran chowder (in Florida) uses Datil peppers, which are both sweet and spicy. Cabo chowder (near the Mexican border) is influenced by Mexican flavors like chipotle and jalapeno, with cumin, cilantro and corn.

Marta
My personal go-to is Cheerios. They are easy to eat with not a lot of sugar. You can eat them one at a time as a snack or add fruit for a morning snack. They are great when you are not feeling well to gain your strength back, eating them slowly. They rarely go stale and you can mix them with other fruit and nuts for a fine trail mix, adding M&Ms for fun. They are not too expensive and are packaged easily into a small bag to eat while walking or driving. Cheerios, my favorite breakfast cereal and comfort food!