Sunday

When we are in PA Jim and I unpack our laptops and sit at the kitchen table and WORK! In the quiet we get stuff done.





So Sunday morning we were in our kitchen-office
until -

looking out the kitchen window to the nearest house - which is further away than this looks like - we saw that the dreary day had turned sunny and golden. So we closed the laptops and rode out to explore the roads near our house.

Even found a once-a-month garage sale permanently installed in a near-by garage. Love it.


But this is the best. A real memory.

Cruising the aisles at the Wal-Mart this can caught my eye and as I lifted it off the shelf I could taste it.
Mama bought La Choy Chicken Chow Mein at the Big Star on Central Avenue in the 1940s. For years this was the only Chinese food I knew - paired with the bagged skinny, hard and crispy noodles.
Once I was the head-cook for our family I often bought LaChoy. Jim says he remembers my serving it more often in San Antonio - when I could buy it even cheaper at the Base commisary.

I cooked it up and spooned it over steamed white rice with a side of the crispy noodles. Sitting at our PA kitchen table = I will tell you - it tastes exactly the same as it did when Mama cooked and we ate at the pull down kitchen table at 814 Hawthorne Lane in Charlotte, NC.

I noticed that Jim stirred his crispy noodles into the rice just like he was supposed to.

No, it is not Asian cuisine. It does not claim to be
Look at the can - it says "Asian inspired".

For me it is the food of memories.