Nostalgia Food

Monday I read at post over at www.terribleminds.com (Yeah it was Chuck Wendig again) talking about needing to eat a good breakfast to get those creative juices flowing. For me, it actually threw me back thinking about breakfasts I used to have back in the day. That night, due to an odd set of circumstances that are not important here, I ended up on my own that night, so scrambling in the kitchen I set out to see if I had what I needed and took a trip into nostalgia land.

Come with me on a little journey...

Sometimes it is the simplest things that will stick with us and will poke at the old memory centers. Simple input that will transport us far and wide to places we've not been to in years. So it was with me Monday night as I partook breakfast for dinner.

This breakfast I only had occasionally and normally at Mamacita's house (my grandmother on my mother's side). My grandmother could burn water - yes, there's an art to that, and she had the skills - but there were a few things she could actually cook. And those that she did, she did well. My favorite of hers was her Asopao (chicken and rice stew), but that's for another day.

The first part of this breakfast was Puerto Rican coffee. We don't drink coffee made of water on the island, no sir. Our coffee is made with milk! (Once you grow up on PR style coffee, American coffee just tastes like bitter awful water. Eek!) Put a cup of milk in a pan and slowly heat it until the fatty part separates to the top. Skim off the fat and pour the hot milk into a coffee cup, add a pinch of instant coffee and sugar to taste and voila!

This is where Mamacita's genius came in. She would take pieces of cheddar cheese and drop them into the coffee. In the hot milk, they would get soft and melty. Make some toast, add butter. Take your prepared bounty to the table and sit.

The scent of coffee wraps around you like a comfortable sweater. Picking up a piece of toast, you dunk it in the coffee were it soaks up the smooth taste and mixes with the butter. Take a bite.

Bliss.

Follow this with a sip of the coffee itself. Mmmm.

Even better, take your spoon and fish in the bottom of the cup for a nice, melting piece of cheddar. Entice your taste buds into a mad frenzy with all these flavors mixed in together. YUM.

Comfort, warmth, and memories...

Heaven...

Try to think of something simple that transports you somewhere else. Share it. Indulge in it. Relive the past...