We are having a few renovations done in our kitchen at the moment so I had to empty my kitchen cabinets. Wow! The stuff you find when you do such things. I can tell you that some deep considering and culling will be done before I replace my necessities back into the kitchen!
However, amongst the minutia I found a small treasure that took me back in time to a particular memory that I relived in my mind as if it were yesterday.
This little glass, rimmed in gold, holds that much power … 
I am three years old. I am visiting my Auntie Louis with my mom and my grandmother. Auntie Louis is my grandmother’s sister-in-law, and she lives alone, a widow for some time. I am at a small table … maybe a coffee table … sitting in a little chair. Everyone else is sitting around the kitchen table.
Auntie Louise approaches me. She is round and tall and wears a long, loose housedress … maybe it is actually a housecoat … her hair is peppered grey and pulled into a bun at the back of her head. Auntie sets down before me this little glass filled with tomato juice. She smiles wide. She has only one tooth … it could be a front tooth … and I am amazed at all that space in her mouth and the strange glistening pink of her gums.
“Here you go, dear.” The lilt in her voice is distinctly French.
I take a sip … salty, tinny, acidy tomato … thick and grainy. It tastes like Auntie Louise’s house.
Her large hips sway as she walks back to the kitchen table, then returns with a box of chocolates.
“Have one, dear.”
I look into her toothless mouth again. Then to her kind, grey eyes. Then to the box of chocolates. I want one that is soft and creamy inside … which one could hold such delight, I wonder.
“Take two,” Auntie says.
I choose a square one and a round one. “Thank you,” I whisper. I am a shy child.
I listen to the adults’ conversation from my little perch, alone with my tomato juice and chocolates. The square one is chewy and sticks in my teeth. I don’t like it but I eat it anyway. The round one holds that creamy pleasure I hoped for. I savor it … a bite of chocolate, then a sip of tomato juice … a bite of chocolate … a sip of tomato juice … such an odd combination.
I’ve never had it since. It belonged at Auntie Louise’s house.
Food memories come to us in different ways. What piques yours?
Eat well. Be happy.
Plynn Gutman 