We made a spontaneous decision to visit our 17-year-old in Washington, DC this past weekend. He's living there for the semester and we were all missing each other. I have a theory that he was missing good, old home cooking, too. My husband thinks I might be exaggerating just a bit, but I want you to know that he looked so much better when we left than when we first arrived. Circumstantial evidence, maybe, but sometimes a mother knows these things.
totally yummy Indian "fast food"
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in a city of gourmet food, sometimes nothing beats sloppy joes and macaroni salad
"There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short times taken in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food. Relaxation, communication and a measure of beauty and pleasure should be part of even the shortest of meal breaks. Of course you celebrate special occasions -- successes of various members of the family, birthdays, good news, answered prayer, happy moments -- with special attention to meal preparation and serving. But we should be just as careful to make the meal interesting and appealing when the day is grey, and the news is disappointing. Children feel the difference in the home that takes this attitude. Father comes home tired and discouraged after some sort of failure or disappointment to find, not the food he dislikes, nor burned soup and sloppy serving, but a beautifully set table, with his favourite food served artistically, and a hot drink and some tiny cookies (biscuits) or nuts served afterwards with all the air of a special occasion. The room-mate receives a letter which is the dreadful reality of a fear long worried about, but comes back to the flat to find a meal prepared in anticipation, and the comfort of hot broth and melba toast, omellete and muffins, and chocolate scalding hot, topped off by a marshmallow or whipped cream. Food cannot take care of spiritual, psychological and emotional problems, but the feeling being loved and cared for, the actual comfort of the beauty and flavour of food, the increase of blood sugar and physical well-being, help one to go on during the next hours better equipped to meet the problems." (The Hidden Art of Homemaking, Edith Schaeffer)
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