Real Food Memories explores the foods, recipes, kitchen traditions, family stories, and everyday meals that shape who we are. From inherited dishes and childhood favourites to the tastes of home we try to recreate years later, these stories preserve the memories behind the food.
Grandma Turner packed egg salad on rye, homemade dill pickles and lemonade for our Port Weller beach trips. A childhood memory of a towering playground, seagulls and a grandmother who kept showing up.
Grandma began making fish in parchment while trying to eat a little healthier. It was delicious enough to become a family tradition, from Mom’s school lunches to my own kitchen.
A fish truck spotted on the drive home could change everything. Kimberly remembers roadside lobster around Niagara, surprise suppers and Mom’s melted butter dishes warmed by tea lights.
Dad did not really cook. He assembled. Bread, softened butter, pickled herring, plain potato chips, raw onion, beer and the newspaper—that was Dad food, one hundred percent.
Kielbasa, Havarti, capicola, rye bread and pickles: our deli drawer kept familiar favorites ready for school lunches, Dad’s snacks and the hungry moments before supper.
A conversation about my daughter’s favorite foods brought us lasagna, birthday lobster, her own shrimp lasagna idea—and roasted potatoes or French fries on the side.
Softball weekends meant a cooler packed by Mom: salmon sandwiches, eggs, kielbasa, cheese, vegetables and fruit. A family food memory about the preparation that kept us fed and moving between games.
Mom remembers the food, music and welcoming family at Club 19 in Niagara-on-the-Lake—and the Cherry Coke and corned beef on rye she missed while living in California.
In late 1976, during a cold family road trip from St. Catharines to Cape Cod, Dad warmed my glass baby bottle of formula on the engine block of our burgundy 1967 Cadillac Eldorado.
Other kids had peanut butter and jam. Kimberly had Zwieback, kielbasa, pirozhki, Thermos meals, shrimp cocktail and whatever else Mom knew she would love.
When Kimberly was nine, her mother Ingrid was severely ill with chronic bronchitis — yet still used the few moments she could stand to prepare thoughtful school lunches for her daughter.
I learned to cook by standing beside Mom, watching her cook by instinct. These food memories preserve the family dishes and tastes of home passed down through generations.
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