Thursday, October 2, 2008

Nostalgia

I know that, for a lot of people, fall is a very favorite season. Not so for me. While I welcome cool air after a stagnant August and certainly have a special place in my heart for fall apples (I am from Virginia, after all!), fall is an unwelcome visitor to me. Especially October, when it starts out so beautifully and then dead ends into the cold and dreary darkness of November.

October also says ‘melancholy’ to me, possibly because the trees look so sad as they drop their leafy raiment to the ground, or maybe because everywhere I look, I see people trying to soak in the last bits of outside-time that they’ll have for months. But I’ve also noticed that my own melancholy (when not inducing carb-cravings from crankiness) is making me very nostalgic.

I’ve been re-reading favored books from my childhood (see Jane Eyre and the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters). I’ve been watching shows that I religiously watched as a child (The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. anyone? I never realized it was so witty!). I even sat down and watching the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark with my roommate last night. I can’t even begin to say when that last time I watched that was.

In the same vein, I’ve been revisiting a lot of childhood foods. The amount of cheese toast that I’ve eaten could possibly feed a small country. I just take so much pleasure in making it like I did when I still lived in my parent’s house in Virginia: slices of sharp cheddar cheese laid on multi-grain bread and then toasted to slightly less than melting. The cheese still retained its shape, but was just bubbly and melty enough to please me. Also, on a whim on my most recent trip to the grocery store, I picked up a bag of rotelle—the pasta that I know more familiarly as wagon wheels. It is my father’s favorite pasta shape. I remember the evenings when he would make it and we would revisit his childhood as we ate it with ketchup (ewwww, my roommate said. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, especially all you ketchup-lovers out there). I don’t have any ketchup at the moment, but it was nice to have the pasta just the same. I’ve even been craving chocolate milk like I used to have it: cold milk with 2 or 3 heaping spoonfuls of Nestle’s Nesquik powder. Though Nesquik’s website is a little scary now.

What are the foods that *you* are nostalgic for??

2 comments:

cmoore said...

ketchup and pasta! wow.

nostalgic foods: ovaltine, zucchini soup, ice cream (with hershey's chocolate sauce) served in tiny dishes, holiday foods.

weezaleez said...

i loooooooooooooove ketchup and pasta... i never told you about it because i thought you would judge me.

nostalgic foods: spaghetti pie, meatloaf, chocolate pudding, "crunchy chicken" (chicken coated in crushed cornflakes and baked), blueberry muffins