kitchencat

The best potatoes I've ever eaten? The ones dug up by my father-in-law and my kids at his little country house with the big vegetable garden in Alexandria, Ontario, near the Québec border. What made them even tastier was watching my children's faces as the plant was pulled from the soil by their grandfather to reveal the cute little potatoes below. Collected in a bucket, rinsed off with the garden hose, cooked and served outside on the picnic table at the edge of the vegetable garden, sprinkled with fresh dill from my mother-in-law's garden, the air sweet with the mixed fragrances of tomatoes, cucumbers, beets and rutabagas, herbs and flowers, those lovingly nurtured spuds could not have tasted better in any universe!

My mother's spareribs! I haven't eaten them in about 45 years (and I don't remember her making them after my early teen years), but I'll always remember their flavour. I've never made spareribs myself, and don't think I've sampled too many in my life since the 1950-60s (I don't know why), but it's the first food that came to mind on reading through this thread. Of course, it was mainly the barbecue sauce she made that tasted so wonderful, but the meat itself was perfectly prepared for my taste and texture-preferences. My mother was a fabulous everyday cook. Another incomparable comfort food she made was spaghetti and meatballs. What a great sauce! It made this traditional fare superb and left me thinking for years that spaghetti and meatballs was a difficult dish to prepare. She put so much time into it. I guess a really good sauce was a specialty of hers. As with the spareribs, she hasn't made spaghetti and meatballs since about the same time. I should ask her why. She probably doesn't have the recipe anymore....