Cherries in Winter

        Suzan Colon’s wonderful memoir, Cherries in Winter, reminds us all of the indomitable connectedness of food and family.

        Even during depression era ‘hard times’ and the hard financial struggles we all face, food and its preparation is the glue that holds families together.

        A good story for me is a universal story-  a story that tickles my memory and brings forward childhood memories and invites me to think that the writer and I have something wonderful in common. 

        In the case of Cherries in Winter, I had my fill.

I now feel like Suzan Colon and I are friends.

        I was reminded that-

*As my father often says to me about our family’s love of food and eating 

        “You came by it honest.”

*That I was mesmerized as a child to see that a distant relative in Port Lavaca, Texas baked so much she stored her flour and sugar in metal trash cans in the kitchen. Truth be told I was also fascinated by the seashell driveway and the crunching sound it made.

*That my mother became a wonderful cook because every day after school in Kingsville, Texas she walked home and ‘started supper’ because her mother (my grandmother) was still at work at the dry cleaners they owned.

*That as a young wife, having a butchered, packaged side of beef as a gift from my parents made me feel flush.

*That the ability to make delicious, smooth, perfectly textured and seasoned giblet gravy, cream gravy, and brown gravy is an art. The women in my family have that artistic touch.

*That women in my family, and the women in Ms. Colon’s family, could make something from nothing, could feed the multitudes, and still have something to send home with company.

*And that the words, ‘supper’s ready’ or ‘come fix your plate’ are calls of love .

                                     ****

Join us at Lisa’s wonderful blog Hospitable Pursuits and join her book club. I can’t wait to hear what the next book is.