Wednesdays are my favorite days

While typically Wednesdays in the business world are "hump days," I personally look at Wednesday as the best day of the week. Why? Well, the Dining and Wine or Food Section is published in all the major newspapers. I pour over the NYTimes online and then pray that my husband has bought a San Francisco Chronicle that day and has saved the Food Section for me.

Today was no different. Today, the NYTimes went green and the SF Chronicle went crazy over clams (Seafood again! Can someone please tell me where they serve all this seafood?? No restaurant here, except maybe Swan Oyster Depot.) One article that caught my eye was the NYTimes article entitled, A Soft Spot for the Anti-Artisanal. The article takes about how author tries to buy "green," organic, sustainable and labor of love foods. But she acknowledges there is a place in one's heart for the foods you grew up on no matter how unhealthy or processed they are. Her example of such food is Wonder Bread.

My mother was sophisticated about what she fed us. We were never allowed Wonder Bread or Koolaid. Perhaps she was ahead of her time. When my brother and I were babies we were wearing cloth diapers and eating homemade baby food.

However, I ate things in my childhood that are not healthy or good for you or the environment that I cannot help but continue to love, including:
- New York sharp cheddar cheese
- White bakery bread, sliced no thicker than 3/8" thick
- Dannon Fat Free yogurt
- Deviled ham and swiss on an english muffin
- Ruffles Potato Chips (I used to put them on turkey sandwiches for the crunch!)
- Oreos (We were allowed to eat four! Mom had some tough rules about junk food.)
- Fresh peaches in August
- Corn on the cob from the farm up the road
- Right off the vine strawberries and the accompanying strawberry shortcake
- Beef stroganoff, an unusual sort of comfort food to me
- Aunt Jess's Chicken: a baked rice, cream of mushroom soup, and chicken dish which is so good!
- Cornell Dairy ice cream and cottage cheese remind me of my visiting my grandmother

As I cook for my husband/family there will be things I remember from my mother and childhood, like hard shell taco night when Dad was out of town, that I will definitely make for my kids. There is always a place for "home cookin'" in your life no matter what your definition of home cookin' happens to be.