Mitch Sneed at Large

I love to cook.
There is nothing like making a meal that fills the house with a wonderful aroma and then sitting down and tasting something that is wonderful.
I guess that’s probably why I’ve always battle weight issues. I love to taste, experiment and share.
I guess I came by it honestly.
My mother always cooked a lot. There weren’t a lot of recipes, but no matter what was on the stove, you could count on their being massive quantities. There was a good reason
There were five of us kids in the house and we always had friends over. Plus, she managed a school lunchroom.
There’s no such thing a cooking a little when you look at those kinds of numbers.
You could look at what was on the table and tell what time of the year it was.
I mean there were things that were always seasonal. Things you just cook at certain times.
Potato soup on the first cool day was a must. You have to cook chili on the first Saturday of college football season. For the kids it was hot chocolate and buttery toast for breakfast on the first day of school. Ham and biscuits for breakfast the day after Christmas was a Sneed staple.
She started it I guess and I just kept the same thing going.
This weekend it was time to make Halloween snack mix. No, the kids are gone, but you still have to fix it. It just starts the season so well. We use Honey nut Cheerios, honey roasted peanuts, Teddy Grahams, Craisins, Candy Corn, M&Ms those little Mallo pumpkins and mix a bunch of each in a big bowl.
It is so good, like I need it.
While I know I didn’t need to make so much, I figured I could share it with the dogs and the folks here at the office.
It’s not just the food, it’s what it does for you.
If nothing else, making the mix brings back memories. Like the first time I had it after Arlene Jensen brought some to work at the Kenosha News. I also remember the first time I made it. It was the day before Halloween in 2000 and we munched on it as trick or treaters trickled by the house we had in Paddock Lake, Wisconsin.
Then last year it was the girls calling me for the recipe.
Isn’t it strange how an element that hits one of our senses can trigger so many other emotions and touches other senses?
I can smell a perfume or cologne that someone is wearing and it makes me think of someone else. I hear a train whistle and think of my Dad who spent 37 years with the railroad. I see a black lab and automatically think of my old dog Midnight.
The sight of a 1965 Mustang makes me pick of the phone and call my best friend Jeff Shockley who still has his first car, a Mustang sitting in his carport.
Our lives are filled with things that often seem trivial at the time: the things we eat, the things we smell, hear and see. But as we go through life, they become identifiers that stick with us over years and distance.
Those are the things that make life special.