Cooking Up Memories: Mother's Apron Poem

I have fond memories of cooking in the kitchen as a child... I'd wear my mother's apron. My favorite apron was white and had a picture of Little Sprout, the child of the Jolly Green Giant, on it. I befriended the little girl who lived next door, and we took turns baking--in our imaginations, the kitchen turned into the pink Barbie house, where the sun always shone through the windows, and our pink corvette was parked in the driveway. We started baking cookies then became more adventurous with cinnamon sticky buns and German cookies with a name we could not pronounce. My neighbor was such a bubbly, energetic little girl. She mad everything fun, even doing the pile of dishes we dirtied! 

My Mom is an artist, and her Christmas sugar cookies are not only delicious but so beautiful they deserve to be in the Louvre Museum with other art masterpieces. The taste of those cookies was so buttery, and soft, golden on the edge with a rounded middle. She would make homemade frosting in a rainbow of colors then decorate each cookie special-- Bells trimmed with sugary pink lace. Tiny people with candy buttons and colorful hats and scarves. Reindeer with hot cinnamon noses. Golden stars covered in gooey frosting. Mom would not stop with sugar cookies--she made almond bark bars, spritz cookies and wreaths too.

When Mom stopped baking Christmas cookies, she went on to make the most amazing Christmas house with real moving parts, and decorated with miniatures she collected all year long. 

My daughter also seems to have picked up the skill of cooking.. here she is, at age six, making dinner. It's a delicious mix of cocoa crunch cereal, canned corn, parmesan cheese, beef broth and spices! Yum!

-- Daylen Swift, August 2014

To Bear and Nora, I love 1,222,222,222,000 +0= U! Tu eres mi corazon. I thank God for you every day! ~ Mommy. P.S. CJ says hi and he misses you. LOL* And the Winnie-the-Pooh story...pfffph!