Favorable Flavorful Food

As we converse the dirty jerks on the slogan team for Lay’s potato chips scoff at me. Why you may wonder? Because similar to their catch phrase I find it difficult to “eat” or rather choose just one fond memory I have with food. And to be quite honest I can’t eat just one of those devilish potato chips either. But potato chips are gum wadded disgracefully under a shoe in comparison to my favorite foods.  

At a young age I already possessed a keen understanding of the fantastic functionality of food; how you could crave, even lust after just a taste of fried squash, a nibble of chocolate pie, or a hefty helping of mashed potatoes. Lucky enough for me I was born into a family heaping full of culinary artists. My mother mastered the spatula serving up delectable deliciousness at every meal, but her staple is salsa. Seriously. This is salsa like you’ve never dreamed, prepared in a way you can’t fathom, with a taste that causes you to shout “Fantastico!” Just thinking about the fresh tomatoes, onions, peppers married in a union of awesomeness makes my mouth water. And that fried squash I mentioned? Mmmmm. It’s the perfect combination of flour  and squash, which creates a delicate balance of flavor and crunch. Her fried okra is the same way—none of those precooked frozen okra balls like you get at “steak houses,” this stuff is real okra lightly breaded and browned to a crisp. Yum. And all of these foods are wonderful, but upon reflection I’ve found one provision standing out among the crowd—Malt-O-Meal.

It never fails sickness or health Malt-O-Meal comforts me. It all undoubtedly derives from my first rememberable Malt-O-Meal experience on a cold morning at my grandma’s house. The first thing you should know is that when you look up amazing in the dictionary my grandma’s picture is there. Secondly, you should appreciate how everything about her was golden, glorious, sublime. She didn’t just make food; she crafted it with instinct and her culinary senses, if you will. And I loved it all. Hence, I was sitting in a straight backed chair at an uncouthly early hour in a small but gently cozy house, which was situated on the moderately populated outskirts of Seminole, Oklahoma, watching the butter slowly melt as I churned my hot breakfast cereal. Sadly, after eating I caught the bus for school, but this memory always stuck with me because it signifies a love my grandma shared with me in everything—not just her cooking, which was wonderful (my mother had to get it somewhere). Here it is 2011 and a piping bowl of Malt-O-Meal could mend a broken heart, ease a cluttered conscious, and ultimately put me at peace.