Food Memory
Written for: therealljidol 8.6 "Food Memory"
The crock-pot. The slow-cooker. Call it what you will.
It is amazing.
Perfect for people like my sister and me who are enthusiastic, but not particularly talented in the kitchen. Suffice it to say that it is hard to mess up a crock-pot recipe. So when a friend passed along this recipe for chicken tortilla soup, we were eager to try it out. We made creative decisions, omitting things we knew would cause havoc with our sensitive digestive systems and the recipe came off without a hitch.
We sat down to eat, and I was pleasantly surprised. The combination of flavors was wonderfully unique. Like a party where nobody knew each other but found themselves getting along better than expected. All except the irritating and overbearing fresh cilantro. If I managed to avoid it, the soup was divine. If not, I was flooded with an unfamiliar and pungent flavor that was by turns foreign and medicinal, and not like an herb at all. It left me wondering why on earth those chefs on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel insisted that it was delicious. One bowl of the tortilla soup with the offensive feature and Tara was done. That left me with roughly six servings to enjoy by myself. It tasted even better as leftovers, as most things do. Even the cilantro calmed down and made nice with the other ingredients.
I quickly learned that the soup (or an element of it) had another strange benefit as I spent the better part of a week having the most vivid and bizarre dreams. First, they featured family members suddenly healed of various ills. A few nights later, musician Adam Lambert made an appearance as an eight-year-old on the old Sally Jessy Raphael talk show. In the dream, Adam had blue hair, and wore terrible 80's clothes that were the fashion then.
My final dream, which occurred when just at the end of my soup-consumption, was a detailed and lovely delusion in which I rode a brown and white pony through a small, antiquated town. It was a perfect day, with a clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine. I stopped by the local malt shop, with red front porch that was reminiscent of my great-grandparents. I got a mint-chocolate shake, which was just mint ice cream on the bottom and chocolate syrup on top. With my craving satisfied, I returned to the front porch to remount my pony and found that I hadn't ridden alone. A friend's blue beagle puppy, Toby, was seated atop the pony, waiting for me. Thusly armed with my malt, puppy and pony, I rode off into the sunny afternoon.
These moments were as sweet as any conscious reminiscence. I felt my hopes, my past, and my family calling to me on soup nights last October.
Sometimes, it's the memory attached that makes the food extra tasty...but sometimes, it's the food that makes the memory.
The crock-pot. The slow-cooker. Call it what you will.
It is amazing.
Perfect for people like my sister and me who are enthusiastic, but not particularly talented in the kitchen. Suffice it to say that it is hard to mess up a crock-pot recipe. So when a friend passed along this recipe for chicken tortilla soup, we were eager to try it out. We made creative decisions, omitting things we knew would cause havoc with our sensitive digestive systems and the recipe came off without a hitch.
We sat down to eat, and I was pleasantly surprised. The combination of flavors was wonderfully unique. Like a party where nobody knew each other but found themselves getting along better than expected. All except the irritating and overbearing fresh cilantro. If I managed to avoid it, the soup was divine. If not, I was flooded with an unfamiliar and pungent flavor that was by turns foreign and medicinal, and not like an herb at all. It left me wondering why on earth those chefs on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel insisted that it was delicious. One bowl of the tortilla soup with the offensive feature and Tara was done. That left me with roughly six servings to enjoy by myself. It tasted even better as leftovers, as most things do. Even the cilantro calmed down and made nice with the other ingredients.
I quickly learned that the soup (or an element of it) had another strange benefit as I spent the better part of a week having the most vivid and bizarre dreams. First, they featured family members suddenly healed of various ills. A few nights later, musician Adam Lambert made an appearance as an eight-year-old on the old Sally Jessy Raphael talk show. In the dream, Adam had blue hair, and wore terrible 80's clothes that were the fashion then.
My final dream, which occurred when just at the end of my soup-consumption, was a detailed and lovely delusion in which I rode a brown and white pony through a small, antiquated town. It was a perfect day, with a clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine. I stopped by the local malt shop, with red front porch that was reminiscent of my great-grandparents. I got a mint-chocolate shake, which was just mint ice cream on the bottom and chocolate syrup on top. With my craving satisfied, I returned to the front porch to remount my pony and found that I hadn't ridden alone. A friend's blue beagle puppy, Toby, was seated atop the pony, waiting for me. Thusly armed with my malt, puppy and pony, I rode off into the sunny afternoon.
These moments were as sweet as any conscious reminiscence. I felt my hopes, my past, and my family calling to me on soup nights last October.
Sometimes, it's the memory attached that makes the food extra tasty...but sometimes, it's the food that makes the memory.