Motherfood

For me, motherhood and food are deeply connected. In addition to being a literal source of food for nearly 5 years of my life, I spend most of my time thinking about food: what and how/much my kids are eating, cleaning up from making them a meal or a snack, and asking who wants to eat again. Motherhood = food.

When I think of my mom, I always think of all the food she carefully made and provided for us growing up - WITHOUT THE INTERNET. For so many of us, the food our mothers or primary caregivers prepare is a symbol of their love. That’s certainly true for me in the stage of life and motherhood I’m in. I feel very close to my mom these days when I’m caring for my own kids, regularly wondering how she felt about doing the same. My dad worked a lot and we ate home cooked food most nights, but we were home with her so how the heck did she get it done? I don’t know about you dear reader, but my hellions seem to have exhausted my creativity and patience when it gets to be cooking time and it sometimes feels like Mad Max to get food done by the time the hangries set in and before it’s time to go to bed.

Did she ever curse our existence and want to help herself to chips for dinner while we fended for ourselves? How did she motivate herself night after night to eat the same old kid food or to try new things only to be met with a critical review from the saltiest 5-year on the planet? Did she want to make new, interesting stuff and couldn’t because we were annoying? Did she make it and I don’t remember it because our critiques preventing her from doing it again?

When I first started eating plant-based, I think it ruffled my mom’s feathers a little bit. And I think now, I understand why: she spent so much time thinking about our food that it probably felt like we were spurning decades of effort and sacrifice. It made me a bit of a stranger. And for my mom I think it caused self-doubt. “I did the best with what I had,” frequently comes out of her mouth, because she holds some shame that she didn’t do enough to nourish our little growing selves despite our robust adult existence as evidence that she did.

What maybe she doesn’t know or see is that those food memories are actually the very heart of what I want to do in my home and share with you here on the blog. I want to recreate the nostalgic deliciousness of the food I grew up with, but fit into how we eat today. There’s so much to love! We had lots of sandwiches in varying shapes and sizes, Fajitas! Barbecued everything. Hamburger Helper! Chili! Oven nachos, slow cooker creations and so much more. And Susan Powter pizza. And spaghetti flying off plates (that’s an inside joke).

Now that I have my own kids, I hope that I can offer them the same memories when they’re older of love on a plate, like my mom offered me. I will forever cling to the happy memories I have with the food my mom lovingly (and maybe sometimes not so lovingly 😂 ) planned and prepared for us, even if I do it just a little differently.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms and Mom-adjacent,

<3 Amanda