Wow, just flashed back to childhood….5 kids & parents packed into the station wagon…with the cool seats in the very back, we could hang our feet out the back window & wave at truckers! 😂 For years that trip was to the same cabin in Rhinelander WI with a bunch of other families we vacationed with. Cabin on the lake, swam, jumping off dock, and lots of fishing & waterskiing. With 4 brothers, learned young…if you want to fish…you bait your own hooks & clean your own fish. Would give anything to spend one more day fishing with my dad. Would love to cook a whole fish properly for him over fire.
When I was a kid it would be our adventure from California to Texas to visit family. We did this every other year. We'd pile in to my parents mustang II, along with our cockapoo, Fluffy, and hit the road. On those road trips was the first time I had bison, and sopapillas. Once we got into Texas we'd stop at a Dairy Queen and get a Dude sandwich - since Texas DQs were the only places that carried that chicken fried steaky burgery goodness. At my grandmother's in Clarksville, which is a small town in North East Texas, we'd have tamales swimming in grease but oh so good. We'd get them from Harrison Lee, who was also known for his bbq. In Dallas my great Aunt Mae would make THE BEST FOOD, but I always remember having biscuits topped with her strawberry fig preserves. She'd always send a few jars back to California with us.
Every summer as soon as school was out, my dad would drive us to Colorado to stay at my sister’s & bro-in-law’s ranch. We’d stay there for the summer fishing for rainbow trout & catfish, care for & ride the horses, and go camping. The best memories of my childhood!
Growing up in MI, we packed our station wagon also and headed to Tawas or Cedar Point or other not-so-far-away places. Put-In-Bay became summer a tradition as I reached drinking age. I'm in FL now where it's always summer, but relocating to Lexington, KY, this summer, so maybe I'll start a new tradition.
I surely do. I travel right to my grocery list and jot down some holiday ingredients . . . lamb tenderloin, baby artichokes, branzino, whole baby pig, plank-grilled eggplant parmesan, and tuna-wiggle. I make sure I've got ample fuel for the grill. Check the wine cooler to pick out numerous out of the ordinary bottles, both white and red. Check the weather to decide whether I'll be eating inside or out. Then head to the kitchen to prep three days of meals. . . .
In the summer, I would spend as much time as I could with my German Oma and Opa. They were Bavarian and had a small German restaurant in Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks that they lived above. When they retired they built their first ever house, a small ranch with a big back porch in the woods. In the summer we would play all day outside and then come home and everyone would wash up and be tan and fresh faced like new little scrubbed potatoes. My Oma would have an outside table set with a big bowl of German potato salad, salt sticks with sweet butter, assorted wursts like brats, blood wurst, and cold beer from those little bottles that were dark brown little bombs of glass...Schmidts. Everyone smoked because it was the late 60s early 70s and the smells were just great but also tinged in a weird good way with red and white hard pack Marlboro's that my Oma chain smoked bhahah. It was simple peasant food and we were happy simple peasants. When I want to go to a happy place in my mind, I think about those summer evenings with my grandparents, schlooging beer from my Opa's stein as a kid and tearing from the bubbles and the mischief of it all. The overriding feeling was of total belonging which escaped in the world outside of my family. The food and family are imprinted in my happy place. A blessing!
Boy Scout Camp. My father was the leader of the Brownsdale MN troop 101. Every year we stayed in a fold out camper at the family campground away from the scouts. Usually had it's own lake (and its own leeches), canoes, trails and play area. When I was about 9, I pulled a baby out of the lake who had fallen off the dock. I can still see it 50-some years later.
Starting in the early '70s, our family would travel every other year by car from Minnesota to Sunset Beach, NC for a reunion of sorts with my mother's many siblings and our abundance of cousins. It was mom, dad, three girls and a boy piled into the station wagon with the luggage strategically packed by dad in a roof top carrier. Inside we had snacks, games, pillows, etc. for the drive to North Carolina via a visit with our Granny Brown in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of SW Virginia along the way. The tradition continues to this day with the difference being that dad, mom and most of her siblings have now passed, but the bevy of cousins grew to include husbands, wives, adult children and grand-babies. Sunset Beach is my favorite place on earth. It's a barrier island in the southern most part of the state and features a wide, clean, white sand beach that can serve up some tasty waves for rafting or body-surfing when the wind is right. Unlike well-known Myrtle Beach to the south, Sunset is mellow and unpretentious. For a week everyone has the shared experience of all things beach-y including visits to the pier for fishing or ice cream, sea shell gathering, 'bashing' the waves, sun burns, god-awful humidity, late night crab hunts, fresh seafood (right off the boat!), and good old evening visiting with extended family not seen often enough. We'll be there in a few weeks!
The first time I visited Panama City Beach was in 1968, to bring my brother home from Tyndall Air Force Base for a leave. We drove up as 5, drove home as 6 in a Chevy Belaire. Slept in a hotel room and brought some sleeping bags, and a one- burner hot plate for making popcorn.
The last time I went was 2021 with husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grand babies in tow.
Much, much has changed. We now stay in condos with luxury bathtubs. We bring along the air fryer. However, the beach is just as white, the emerald water just as beautiful. I love that over the years I have gotten to make so many memories. We leave for the Redneck Riviera in two weeks, I don’t care how much the gas costs!
When my sister and I were little, my parents loaded us up and we drove to Wisconsin Dells every summer for a week on Lake Delton. We stayed at the same tiny family owned resort every year. The people who owned it were Italian and were from Chicago, my parents became friends with them and they would come visit us on the farm in Iowa in the off season. I was fascinated with their "accents" and stories about the city.
We learned how to swim, fish and paddle a canoe. We always had to go on a trail ride even tho we had a pony at home - my dad could never understand this! lol!
We would start every morning with hot tea and finish the day with some burned hot dogs and smores my dad would grill over charcoal outside our cabin. Charred food never tasted so good! 🙂
When my husband and I had our son, we took him to the Dells when he was 3. We've been going back every year ever since - now the trip includes my parents, my sister and her family as well as my own family. I hope someday my grandkids are able to retrace these steps and make the same amazing memories that I carry with me to this day!
Really? Do you think bring snarky is warranted here? Andrew’s recipe called for a cup of miso and resulted in a sauce that is disgustingly salty. I’d say it sucked and was a waste of money not only for the miso, but for the dashi powder and the saki. You can stick your smart alec comment where the sun don’t shine.
Andrew, I tried your miso sauce the other day. I've never used miso before so I didn't bother to read the label. You said it was wonderful and that was enough for me. Wasn't I surprised to discover the huge amount of salt in miso. Maybe you can warn consumers when you publish a video or a recipe? Thanks.
Wow, just flashed back to childhood….5 kids & parents packed into the station wagon…with the cool seats in the very back, we could hang our feet out the back window & wave at truckers! 😂 For years that trip was to the same cabin in Rhinelander WI with a bunch of other families we vacationed with. Cabin on the lake, swam, jumping off dock, and lots of fishing & waterskiing. With 4 brothers, learned young…if you want to fish…you bait your own hooks & clean your own fish. Would give anything to spend one more day fishing with my dad. Would love to cook a whole fish properly for him over fire.
When I was a kid it would be our adventure from California to Texas to visit family. We did this every other year. We'd pile in to my parents mustang II, along with our cockapoo, Fluffy, and hit the road. On those road trips was the first time I had bison, and sopapillas. Once we got into Texas we'd stop at a Dairy Queen and get a Dude sandwich - since Texas DQs were the only places that carried that chicken fried steaky burgery goodness. At my grandmother's in Clarksville, which is a small town in North East Texas, we'd have tamales swimming in grease but oh so good. We'd get them from Harrison Lee, who was also known for his bbq. In Dallas my great Aunt Mae would make THE BEST FOOD, but I always remember having biscuits topped with her strawberry fig preserves. She'd always send a few jars back to California with us.
Every summer as soon as school was out, my dad would drive us to Colorado to stay at my sister’s & bro-in-law’s ranch. We’d stay there for the summer fishing for rainbow trout & catfish, care for & ride the horses, and go camping. The best memories of my childhood!
Nature! I hate crowds, and the mountains are packed with yummy mushrooms right now :-)
Adorable picture by the way....
Growing up in MI, we packed our station wagon also and headed to Tawas or Cedar Point or other not-so-far-away places. Put-In-Bay became summer a tradition as I reached drinking age. I'm in FL now where it's always summer, but relocating to Lexington, KY, this summer, so maybe I'll start a new tradition.
I surely do. I travel right to my grocery list and jot down some holiday ingredients . . . lamb tenderloin, baby artichokes, branzino, whole baby pig, plank-grilled eggplant parmesan, and tuna-wiggle. I make sure I've got ample fuel for the grill. Check the wine cooler to pick out numerous out of the ordinary bottles, both white and red. Check the weather to decide whether I'll be eating inside or out. Then head to the kitchen to prep three days of meals. . . .
In the summer, I would spend as much time as I could with my German Oma and Opa. They were Bavarian and had a small German restaurant in Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks that they lived above. When they retired they built their first ever house, a small ranch with a big back porch in the woods. In the summer we would play all day outside and then come home and everyone would wash up and be tan and fresh faced like new little scrubbed potatoes. My Oma would have an outside table set with a big bowl of German potato salad, salt sticks with sweet butter, assorted wursts like brats, blood wurst, and cold beer from those little bottles that were dark brown little bombs of glass...Schmidts. Everyone smoked because it was the late 60s early 70s and the smells were just great but also tinged in a weird good way with red and white hard pack Marlboro's that my Oma chain smoked bhahah. It was simple peasant food and we were happy simple peasants. When I want to go to a happy place in my mind, I think about those summer evenings with my grandparents, schlooging beer from my Opa's stein as a kid and tearing from the bubbles and the mischief of it all. The overriding feeling was of total belonging which escaped in the world outside of my family. The food and family are imprinted in my happy place. A blessing!
Boy Scout Camp. My father was the leader of the Brownsdale MN troop 101. Every year we stayed in a fold out camper at the family campground away from the scouts. Usually had it's own lake (and its own leeches), canoes, trails and play area. When I was about 9, I pulled a baby out of the lake who had fallen off the dock. I can still see it 50-some years later.
Starting in the early '70s, our family would travel every other year by car from Minnesota to Sunset Beach, NC for a reunion of sorts with my mother's many siblings and our abundance of cousins. It was mom, dad, three girls and a boy piled into the station wagon with the luggage strategically packed by dad in a roof top carrier. Inside we had snacks, games, pillows, etc. for the drive to North Carolina via a visit with our Granny Brown in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of SW Virginia along the way. The tradition continues to this day with the difference being that dad, mom and most of her siblings have now passed, but the bevy of cousins grew to include husbands, wives, adult children and grand-babies. Sunset Beach is my favorite place on earth. It's a barrier island in the southern most part of the state and features a wide, clean, white sand beach that can serve up some tasty waves for rafting or body-surfing when the wind is right. Unlike well-known Myrtle Beach to the south, Sunset is mellow and unpretentious. For a week everyone has the shared experience of all things beach-y including visits to the pier for fishing or ice cream, sea shell gathering, 'bashing' the waves, sun burns, god-awful humidity, late night crab hunts, fresh seafood (right off the boat!), and good old evening visiting with extended family not seen often enough. We'll be there in a few weeks!
The first time I visited Panama City Beach was in 1968, to bring my brother home from Tyndall Air Force Base for a leave. We drove up as 5, drove home as 6 in a Chevy Belaire. Slept in a hotel room and brought some sleeping bags, and a one- burner hot plate for making popcorn.
The last time I went was 2021 with husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grand babies in tow.
Much, much has changed. We now stay in condos with luxury bathtubs. We bring along the air fryer. However, the beach is just as white, the emerald water just as beautiful. I love that over the years I have gotten to make so many memories. We leave for the Redneck Riviera in two weeks, I don’t care how much the gas costs!
When my sister and I were little, my parents loaded us up and we drove to Wisconsin Dells every summer for a week on Lake Delton. We stayed at the same tiny family owned resort every year. The people who owned it were Italian and were from Chicago, my parents became friends with them and they would come visit us on the farm in Iowa in the off season. I was fascinated with their "accents" and stories about the city.
We learned how to swim, fish and paddle a canoe. We always had to go on a trail ride even tho we had a pony at home - my dad could never understand this! lol!
We would start every morning with hot tea and finish the day with some burned hot dogs and smores my dad would grill over charcoal outside our cabin. Charred food never tasted so good! 🙂
When my husband and I had our son, we took him to the Dells when he was 3. We've been going back every year ever since - now the trip includes my parents, my sister and her family as well as my own family. I hope someday my grandkids are able to retrace these steps and make the same amazing memories that I carry with me to this day!
Really? Do you think bring snarky is warranted here? Andrew’s recipe called for a cup of miso and resulted in a sauce that is disgustingly salty. I’d say it sucked and was a waste of money not only for the miso, but for the dashi powder and the saki. You can stick your smart alec comment where the sun don’t shine.
Andrew, I tried your miso sauce the other day. I've never used miso before so I didn't bother to read the label. You said it was wonderful and that was enough for me. Wasn't I surprised to discover the huge amount of salt in miso. Maybe you can warn consumers when you publish a video or a recipe? Thanks.