Food Memories

Are there any foods or drinks that you automatically associate with a certain memory or something?

Whenever I randomly decide to buy a bottle of Yoohoo Chocolate Milk, I think about being over at Memaw and Papa's house as a child.

When I see a pack of Hershey's Chocolate Milk as I'm walking down the drinks aisle in the grocery store, I think about Halloween while I was growing up, because Aunt Dot and Uncle Lee will have usually just returned from their trip to Hershey, PA, and they always brought us back a pack of 3 cartons of chocolate milk to put in our trick-or-treat bags!

(Did I really just make 2 references to chocolate milk? You betcha.)

And when I have Coke and/or a Klondike bar, I remember all the great times my sister, cousin and I spent at Ganny and Papa's house having sleepovers.  Klondike bars always made the best dessert, and Coke only tastes good at their house! Don't ask why...it just does!

Well, on Friday, I found a pack of Banana Nut Muffin mix in the pantry and was so excited to make them.  Why? Because I love them, and I probably haven't had one in over a year.  Just smelling the batter brought back memories from the summer of 2011.  During those summer months, I made many batches of these muffins, because they made a quick and easy grab-and-go breakfast.

Monday-Friday that summer, I would wake up at 5:30am and have a bowl of Cheerios, while still laying in bed, watching TV.  Around 6:00, I'd finally decide to get up and get ready.  At 6:20, before heading out the door, I would pack my lunch box, put on my lab coat, grab a Banana Nut Muffin and head off to my internship! For some reason, I always waited until I got to the hospital for my internship to eat the muffin as I was walking in.  And I enjoyed every last bite of it! haha.

So, late Friday morning when I grabbed a muffin as I headed out the door to run a couple of errands, I immediately started thinking about my internship.  As I ate my muffin in the car, (I decided to not wait and eat it as I walked into Target later on..), I could distinctly remember everything about walking into the hospital, walking past the waiting area for Cardiac Rehab, seeing all the usual 7:00am patients and them all greeting me simultaneously, and walking over to the staff door to wait for the nurse to get there.  I haven't thought about my internship in the longest time, but it's funny how something as simple as a muffin can bring back so many memories!