I know smells are a very powerful catalyst for memories. But what about cooking? My unemployment has made me super domestic lately. I am pre-planning meals and whipping up treats. Tom requested I make jello today. He likes sugar free, blech. He couldn't decide on a flavor so I suggested parfaits. That came out of the deep recesses of my mind. When he got home from work he discovered a refrig full of lime/orange jello in vintage tupperware parfait cups. I inherited them from my mom when she was sorting through her kitchen a couple of years ago. That row of six cups lined up on the second shelf is exactly the way my mom made them.
I also decided to make myself pudding. Not the instant kind but the cooked. I am a gourmet you know. At that moment standing over the pot, whisk in hand, I had a flashback. Of being a little girl next to my dad at the stove. He would be cooking butterscotch pudding. And telling me how important the temperature control is. Keep stirring. That's the key. When it was ready he'd pour into little pyrex pudding cups. It would cool leaving that little darker pudding skin on top. The spoon cuts through into the still warm pudding below. He had me convinced that properly cooked pudding was a delicate art.
So right now I have four pyrex cups of butterscotch pudding waiting to be eaten. I truly am a product of my upbringing.