What was your family kitchen like growing up?

Like most here I'm sure, the kitchen was everything growing up. We were all drawn there by the smells coming from something cooking either in the morning and evening during the week, or all day on the weekends it seemed like. Back then, there was little on the three stations we had on our TV set, so it was natural to gravitate to the kitchen and talk, watch mom cook, and visit with family and friends. If it hadn't been for those experiences and memories I would probably pop microwavable hot pockets and mac and cheese in the mic every night or pick up fast food to kill the pain. Thank God for mom and her kitchen, saving me from a life of immitation food.

Wow. Thanks for jogging memories. We were poor folks from New Iberia and my dad was a roughneck who worked Morganza fields sometimes. I also remember West Cote Blanche, Henderson, Venice, Marsh Island and many other names that fade into the past.

Our kitchen was about 10 x 6 feet. We had a tiny wooden house built on brick pillars. There was a small kitchen table that could seat 2. No more than 2 people could be in the kitchen at one time or they'd get in each other's way.

The advantage from the cook's point was that he could reach the stove, sink, pantry (a white metal cabinet kind of like a gym locker) all in 1 step.

There was no dish washer or garbage disposal.

Me and Bro's bedroom was next to the kitchen. The doors to all rooms were always opened as were the windows because we had no air conditioning and it was hot as hell in New Iberia in the 50s.

About 4 am every morning I could see the small light over the sink go on. Dad would never use the overhead kitchen light because it would wake us up. By that dim light he would make some Sanka instant coffee and pack his black tin lunch box with two liver-cheese sammiches that my mom made the night before and left in the fridge (Mom couldn't cook).

He filled his thermos with milk and headed out to work. Had to pick up his crew, Tibby and Mac at 4:30 am and they drove 2 hours to start work at day break.

They knocked off at 5. Dad got home at 7 for dinner and went to bed. That went on for 35 years.

When I came home from college they had never made any upgrades on the kitchen. Still no garbage disposal when they died in the early 1990s.

One interesting thing I remember is that my mom was an artist and she decided to paint English Ivy on one of the kitchen walls. Today I've got English Ivy on one the exterior brick walls of my home. The wife loves it. Looks great. Maybe that was the genesis of the idea for my planting it. Never made that connection before.

All meals were an event with my father. He was a great cook. He learned from a Sunset series classic French cookbook. He also cooked what we we gathered from the Chesapeake, which was just outside my door. Crabs, oysters, ducks, geese, fish, eels, etc.

Weekend dinners started at 6:30 and usually ended about 10:00. Booze, apps and great conversations. We took it all outside in the summer.

Good times. I miss my Dad.

Mom had a maid that could turn porkchops into the toughest piece of shoe leather you ever put in your mouth.

My parents never would have agreed to the help cooking; they weren't qualified. I was always mystified when I went to other kid's houses for dinner at how strange the food was.