It’s a busy time of year for many of us. I’ve been on a whirlwind of shopping for gifts, making sure that I find just the right one for each person, gathering up of the ingredients for the cacophony of Epicurean treats we are going to devour in the next few days. I chose to remember the one who taught me to cook and shared her love of all that is nature’s bounty, my great grandmother, Linnie, who always made me feel welcome in her home whenever we got the chance to come home from whatever base my dad was stationed at. Her coconut cake was one of my absolute favorites, and while to me, mine just doesn’t taste the same as hers, it comes damn close. The smells of the house are amazing, mulberry from the candles, flowers that make me smile as I see them in passing because fresh flowers were something that both my Gran and my mother both appreciated. I am not sure that my family knows the importance of what the recipes mean to me, but its my connection to the past…that sense of belonging if only for a little while. Family has always been important to me, I guess because we moved so often and we were our own piece of the life we had left back here in the south, no matter how dysfunctional it could be sometimes. Now all those closest to me have moved on to another plane, no longer here in a physical presence to remind me of where I came from or who I am, so I choose to remember them in the telling of stories of their lives, make the foods that once graced their tables. That keeps me connected in the busy daily grind of life. When things became too difficult for me, my Gran would always tell me to “stand tall”..she mean for me to hold my ground because “this too shall pass”…I hear this ring in my ears still when I am more than a little off-centered. It’s good advice even now that I am no longer the frightened child who had no idea who she was or where she was headed…I hope that some day when my little people look back on their time with me they too can smile and remember it with smiles and laughter and love…cause that is what its all about.