STS: My Mother the Fooder

In honor of my mother's impending visit I thought I'd go ahead and share a story about her. First a little back story, my mom is a fooder. A fooder is a person who recalls significant life events not by what took place but rather by what was consumed. A fooder will hit twelve different grocery stores shopping for the best deals but has no qualms about dropping ten bucks on a quarter pound of the "right" cheese.

So about seven years ago or so my parents were in a similar situation to the one they're in now. Dad was living in a crappy apartment in Eatonville, WA working at a new job and mom had stayed behind in Missouri to sell the house. Michele and I drove over from Spokane to visit and mom and sister were flying in for the weekend. On the drive down to Eatonville from the airport the conversation centered around the usual topic, food.

At some point I brought up one of my favorite meals from my childhood, Egyptian lamb croquettes. I hadn't had them in I'm guessing, 7 or 8 years. Mom used to make them occasionally as we were growing up and I had fond memories of them. They don't take much to make but a little foresight is necessary to gather up the required spices and the ground lamb. I should mention that the ground lamb is not an off the shelf item, mom would have top make a special trip to the butcher to get the right cut and have it ground, so you can imagine the reaction in the car at what mom said next.

"Oh, I've got some ground lamb in my carry on, we can have croquettes for dinner tonight."

Mom just sat there shocked and confused as the rest of the car exploded in laughter. If I remember correctly, I almost drove off the road I was laughing so hard. To this day she still doesn't get the joke.

Here's mom now, adjusting her glasses in my general direction.

Who knows what kind of hijinks will ensue this weekend.