As I mentioned in the post about the herb garden, I’ve been cooking a lot out of cans we bought for Hurricane Irene. On Monday night, my wife suggested we just eat the big can of Spaghetti-Os with Meatballs for dinner the next night. Considering this would cover a meal before theoretically heading to the farmer’s market, I agreed. I never did wind up making it to the farmer’s market–or the grocery store for that matter–partly because Lucy was having kind of a funky week and partly because we’re leaving for a wedding later today and didn’t want a lot of food sitting in the fridge while we weren’t here. You could probably sprinkle a little laziness and overwhelmedness into that stew of blame as well.
To be fair, the Spaghetti-Os weren’t terrible. I’m by no means a food snob and actually grew up on this stuff. Cracking open a can of food or soup or making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese were the extent of my food preparation as a kid spending summers home alone. It might not sound like the healthiest thing in the world, but I can’t tell you how liberating that felt. I could make my own food (kinda). I didn’t have to wait for dinner or my folks to take me somewhere, I could make Mac & Cheese and be good to go (I still love those blue boxes of awesomeness, by the way)! At the time, that’s where my interest in food ended. I only needed to keep gas in the tank and didn’t really care what it was, but the ability to metaphorically buy my own gas was a big step in my oncoming adulthood.
So, yeah, this post is kind of a joke. I laughed as I took the pictures and my wife asked me nicely not to broadcast our dinner of choice, but since it’s got a historic place in my food history, I figured it would make for a good post. What were some of the first foods you guys realized you could make on your own?
Pop Poppa 