Sunday, February 19, 2006

Saturday Mornings...

Today I was reminded about some of my favorite Saturday morning traditions and memories from many years ago. Why was I reminded about them today, as today is Sunday? Well...I spent the night at a friend's house last night, and due to the icy roads, church was cancelled, so we had bacon, eggs, and biscuits this morning for breakfast. As we were cooking and then eating, I was reminded of making Saturday morning breakfasts every time I'd spend the night with one of my friends. She and I would get up on Sat., make pancakes, bacon, toast, eggs: the works, and then everyone would sit down and have breakfast. Recently, another friend told me that their Sat. morning tradition was for her husband to get up and make breakfast for the kids.
I can remember special things, as a child, I either ate or learned to make on our Sat. mornings. We had blueberry pancakes. And we always begged Mom to make pancake teddy bears. (They'd have either blueberry or raisin eyes.) I learned that the best way to make scrambled eggs is to add a little milk and use the skillet after cooking the bacon. Or we could have omelets. Mom is really good at flipping them perfectly. Occasionally we'd have fresh squeezed orange juice, ('cause there was some big craze about fresh juice back then. Pity it just takes alot of work for a tiny cup of juice.) And on your biscuits, there is nothing like "Kentucky Jam" as my grandad called it. You mix a little bit of butter with sorghum (aka "sorgrum" as we kids called it) or molasses, and it's delicious !! We really didn't use too much jelly. OH! And on special occasions (Christmas morning or birthdays) we had country ham. I still like to put a slice of country ham in my biscuit to make a little sandwich.
I LOVE Sat. morning breakfasts!! I had completely forgotten all about them. I have to work most every Sat. now, and my family doesn't really do the whole family-get-up-and-cook thing. Cereal or a smoothie is usually what I'm having for breakfast these days. And I hate that I'm not even really sure how to make sausage and gravy (another southern breakfast tradition.) Cooking is something that I enjoy but that I don't really do if I'm cooking for just me. You know? Anyway...I'm hoping to change all that in the near future. I'm told that planning a menu and actually cooking those foods is a great way to save money and have homecooked food. SO...that's what I'm going to start doing. (I hope.) I want to be able to cook effortlessly. And that isn't how I cook now. I've told myself in the past that I'd wait until I'm married, or until I have a bigger kitchen, or until I have that KitchenAid mixer I want, or until "put condition here" to learn. All of those are just easy excuses to justify living off of ramen noodles and sandwiches. So...I'm saying hello to my pots and pans. I'm taking that microwave rice maker back to Wal-Mart. (Really, that was just a lazy purchase. I know how to make rice; I'm just impatient.) I'm going to crack open one of the 10 cookbooks that I have, and I'm going to start cooking. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
And maybe, someday, I'll have more fun Sat. morning breakfasts with my family. If you haven't had one in awhile, I hope you'll take the time to do it. The memories are priceless.

1 comment:

lal said...

i hear you on the priceless saturday morning memories. my brother and i used to wake up before my mom and dad and we would watch cartoons side by side in our matching rocking chairs and eat pop tarts.