It’s pretty typical for a daughter to cook more or less like her mother, at least as she gets started in her adult life.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the woman who always cut off the end of her ham before baking it, only to discover years later that the only reason her mom always did that was because the ham wouldn’t fit in her roasting dish?
I was that way, too, at first. What my mom made from scratch (which was more than many), I made from scratch, even as a college student. (And later, too: see Mom’s biscuits, Potato salad, and Cream of Potato Soup for recipes that have always been in my life.)
In college I only branched out from “the known,” ironically, to incorporate more processed convenience foods like pasta-roni and canned biscuits (even though I always preferred her homemade biscuits). They were cheap, easy, and expected of a college student.
At some point, though, the tides began to shift. Perhaps it was when the daughter started blogging about food, and the mother read every word the daughter wrote (because that’s what moms do, especially when their daughters don’t call nearly as often as they should!). Then the dads brag about the daughter, even though he has no idea what she does. Because that’s what dads do, at least in my family.
It’s been fun and invigorating – and awkward at times – to have quite a bit of influence over my own mom’s real food changes. As I’ve tried new things, she has too.
Where is Katie’s Mommy?
When I did a reader survey last December, one comment jumped out at me. The reader was a bit tired of mother-in-law comments, and asked:
“Where is your mom? If you have to have guest posts, can she write one? I’d love to hear more about/from Katie’s mommy, and less from Katie’s Husband’s Mommy.”
So first of all, in this Mother’s Day ode, I have to say once again how much I appreciate my mother-in-law and all that she does for us. She’s one of the most giving people in my life, and both Smart Sweets and Better Than a Box probably would have never gotten finished if not for her generosity in watching my children, who absolutely adore her.
She’s great at having crafts for them to do and always makes a whopping fruit salad for any family party we host at our house. She has even bought gluten-free pasta to serve us, but she draws the line at over-a-dollar-apiece for gluten-free hamburger buns. Her frugal nature couldn’t stomach that one: “You can just go bunless, honey!” We love her to pieces.
And ironically, well before the reader comment about my mom and guest posts, I had been trying to get my mom to write a guest post about Food on Your Face for Acne and Oily Skin, because she uses a lot of Crunchy Betty’s ideas from the book. She was always too hesitant, but I finally got her to share at least a little something from her kitchen for the end of this post (which she doesn’t know is all about her and is probably mortified right now. Ha!).
Beyond completely changing her skincare routine after decades, my mom has been so open to changes in the kitchen as she reads KS and all the wild things we’re trying here. For example:
It was when I was pregnant that I first decided what I ate was truly important. In fact, through tears of shock, Google searching for “what to eat when pregnant” was the best way for me to cope and “do something” when I had no idea what to do.
