Tastes Like Memories

A certain super-cool cousin of mine wrote a blog recently about her favorite foods. Not necessarily the most delicious or culinarily impressive, but the foods that hold the best memories in their taste for her. I loved this idea so much I decided to steal it and write my own list of foods that have the best memories for me. The ones I can just taste or smell and be transported back to that memorable experience. These foods all have a story. Maybe the story or the food will be familiar to you?!

1. Sonlight chocolate chip cookies (none other like them in the world)
2. fruit loops and diet coke for breakfast
3. Cracklin Oat Bran or "big Os"
4. homemade waffles with hand-whipped cream and Aunt Jemima
5. Papa John's pizza and deep conversations with my mom
6. Haagen Dazs' dulce de leche ice cream, eaten with a fork
7. Lucky Charms in the kitchen of the house on 17th street
8. graham cracker and homemade frosting sandwiches
9. chicken pot pie
10. peanut butter pie
11. totino's meat lovers' pizza, with the meat picked off and Demetri Martin comedy
12. chai and catching up with old friends
13. baked potato with A1 sauce
14. swirly bread
15. sleepy time tea
16. Smarties, lined up in a row by color
17. kraft mac and cheese in Britta's yard
18. otter pops
19. popcorn from the old air popper, with extra butter and salt
20. Christmas eve sugar cookie dough
21. crab apples from Grandma's back yard
22. brie, eaten with a knife
23. caramel frappuccinos and shopping with my mom
24. Peaberry's Frozen Bear
25. Jalino's slice of cheese pizza eaten on the lawn of Boulder High
26. toast and Lipton tea for dinner, MV Explorer
27. pho, Vietnam
28. McDonald's french fries while falling asleep in the car, age 3
29. warm milk to fall asleep, Jasmin's house
30. Junior Mints, at almost every movie I've ever seen in theaters
31. Dip n Dots, Louisville century 12
32. sea urchin on a dare, San Diego
33. Stingray and thai food, Malaysia
34. graham crackers and apple juice in Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen
35. Cinnamon apple spice tea, extra sugar
36. cinnamon pop tarts with Katie, college dorm
37. strawberry rhubarb jam - Grandma's and Gold Hill Inn's
38. homemade ice cream
39. raspberry lemonade and late night conversations
40. cotton candy, Denver zoo
41. free/stolen hot chocolate, Denver Botanical Gardens
42. Sherpa Sampler (with saag panir)
43. homemade pizza - every Friday
44. s'mores around the campfire (toasted on a rake)
45. candy and soda and sitcom theme songs with Tanya
46. Burger King on top of Victoria's peak, Hong Kong
47. sno cone on the beach in Hawaii (Thanksgiving dinner)
48. freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with a rum and coke, while deepening friendships
49. toasted pumpkin seeds
50. sipping ramen soup while watching Titanic, home sick from school
51. Illegal Pete's bean and cheese burrito and Boulder outdoor cinema - Usually Monty Python, Princess Bride, or Ferris Bueller

Boulder State of Mind

While I wait for an episode of Glee to load (yeah yeah, I'm a Gleek...especially because I use the word gleek) I think I'll write whatever comes to mind right now.

I've loved my time living with the wonderfully awesome Heidi here in Denver, but it is soooo time to move back to Boulder. While I love the apartment here and the roommate, and the fact that there's a Sonic down the street (orange cream slush = YUM!) it's been getting harder and harder to drive that 40 minute drive back and forth all the time between Denver and Boulder. I guess it's just an experience that needed to be had in order to come to this conclusion: I don't have to always live in Boulder, but as long as I'm in Colorado...Boulder it definitely is. No point in living NEAR the coolest town in the state if I'm not actually going to live there. Even if Boulder doesn't have a Sonic. It doesn't have a Trader Joe's either which I am increasingly sad about, nor is it the most diverse of people or the cheapest place to live, but what does Boulder have? It holds within its borders almost ALL of my best childhood memories, it has the most amazing backdrop of mountains, it has a good balance of cold and hot and in between weather and a ridiculous amount of sunny days per year, it has beauty and precise care down to a science of almost freakish perfection while still managing to be spontaneous and rugged, and still remains just the right amount of artistic and weird! I fall in love with Boulder all over again each day when I drive toward the mountains from my current home in Denver. Someone once asked me how I can stand to leave home to travel. I answered something like this: I feel compelled to travel to new and completely different places often, and never fear leaving my home behind because I know it will always be there when I return. It will always hold my childhood for me and keep it safe, and every time I come back it's still there to offer new memories and old comforts. Thank you, Boulder! I'll always come back to you no matter how long I'm gone <3