What Memories Taste Like

Just like music, food can take us back to a time, a place, a moment in our lives, maybe even the people we were with.  Hopefully your most powerful food memory is not the disgusting cold peas you were gagging on while trying to clean your plate to earn dessert.

And speaking of dessert....

When I was a kid my grandmother made these awesome squares at Christmastime.  They were soooo gooey and good.  She passed away when I was fairly young and the squares faded from memory.  As an adult, baking became my thing and Christmas my season.  Every year I would turn out dozens of different cookies and squares, always trying a few new things each year, but never forgetting to make the favourites.  A few years back I tried this marshmallow square recipe (no, not the Rice Krispie variety).  It was fast, easy and no bake.  When I cut the pan into squares and took my first bite I was suddenly ten years old again.  Holy crap!! These were my grandmother's squares. I didn't even remember them until that bite.  But with that one bite I was instantly back in her house at Christmas surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins.  I'm tellin' ya, I could have wept.

I no longer bake a ton of stuff at Christmas, mostly because there are fewer people around to eat it so then I have to and then that leads to the kind of New Year's resolutions that involves scales and sweating a lot.  Yah, you know what I'm talking about.  But I still make my grandmother's squares, 'cause for me, they taste like Christmas.

So in the spirit of giving and sharing at Christmastime, I here now share with you my grandmother's marshmallow square recipe.  But they won't taste the same to you.

You don't have my memories.