I feel as though my whole life has pointed me to this purpose. Food.

I can remember the exact moment I decided to quite drinking Soda. Sitting in the cab of my Father-in-Laws truck. I asked for a Dr. Pepper. He brought it out to me. I took one drink and thought, I don’t even like Soda. Why and I drinking it? 

We were a family of dairy drinkers and I would spend a good part of my childhood watching my Grandparents and Father in Law round up the dairy cows from the green pastures. They would scoot their little heads between the metal bars and fill up the grain buckets. They would pat their rump, sanitize their stainless steel milking buckets and I would perch on an overturned bucket next to them. Watching them squeeze the utters and listening to the liquid tink against the metal. 

My grandparents made their income off selling milk to their neighbors. They processed it right from the garage. My grandmother and mother canned what they could from the garden and the smell of fresh bread was always filling the kitchen. She would fry up a small piece of the dough occasionally and dust it with butter, cinnamon and sugar for my sister and I. 

I spent seven years climbing plumb trees, picking wild blackberries fresh off the vines and eating wild pecans from the shells that had fallen to the ground. 

My Grandmother was always snapping off fresh beans and peas, ripe plump tomatoes from her garden and summers dishes were never without a sweet watermelon. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we always had good food. I wouldn’t recognize the rare experience and the worth of it for what it was until later in life. 

We moved from our country life into the city and away from our connection to food. My mom was a single mom then, trying to get by and work. We started drinking store bought milk. 

Our life took us to the island of Guam where my connection with food would be reignited in a whole new way. While I regret never climbing a tree to pick a banana or mango myself, we were suddenly exposed to new foods. Our school lunches were made by the Mother’s of the Island with Japanese and Philipino influence. There were gathering were the food was what you came for. There was never a dish without rice and finindini sauce with fried or bbq’d chicken and Ramen in different flavors and varieties. While fresh produce wasn’t in the picture much there was a love and a culture behind meal. It was shared and enjoyed together and infused with love. Because milk had to be shipped long distances to the grocery store, they used a powder to preserve it. It never tasted good and it only took one rotten glass of milk for me to never eat it again.