Are you going to have any type of sandwich in which you are using buns? TOAST THEM! Every. Single. Time. Toast them buns. “Well, how should I toast them Cody?” Don’t just toss them in a pan dry. Don’t broil them. Please, don’t use the toaster. Guess what? Don’t use butter either. “GASP! What did he say? Toast buns without butter?! Is he insane?!” No, now pay attention. The pros toast their buns with mayo instead of butter. That’s right, Patrick, mayonnaise can be an instrument. The oil in the mayo is going to give you the perfect golden crispy toast. Don’t believe me? Try it out. You’ll never use butter to toast your buns ever again.. ALSO! If you have one, use a cast iron to toast them buns. It’ll act as a real nice griddle. Get it a nice medium hot before tossing them bad boys in there and they’ll crisp up just like you were making a grilled cheese. (Bonus tip: use mayo for grilled cheese too). “But Cody, I don’t have a cast iron pan.” Don’t talk to me about not having cast iron. Just don’t. That conversation will end with ultimately “GET YA-SELF A CAST IRON PAN ALREADY!” In the meantime, use any pan you have I guess. Just don’t walk away from the stove while you’re toasting because nobody, I MEAN NOBODY, likes burnt up buns. Keep an eagle eye on them babies.

Fond memories of Jellied Pineapple Rings, they were a treat my mother made when I was a kid. For the Handpicked Design Challenge.

Ladoo or the famous motichoor ladoo is an all time hit in India.North,South, East or west, this ladoo will have you drooling over in the country.Usually eaten as a dessert, this motichoor ladoo is rich and soft and a favorite of the Indian household during festivals like Diwali.

Fave Memory - I remember first making the recipe for Fudge from the label of the jar of Marshmallow Fluff jar in the 80s. You didn't need to worry about candy thermometers and getting just the right temperature with this recipe. It was simple and quick! It was the age of convenience...the microwave was used more than the oven in those days! (how do you like my "Miami Vice" colorway? Rad, right?!)

Fave Memory (or, more accurately, based on a memory).

My dad had very strong opinions about food (i.e., is it sweet or is it sour...decide!). But I didn't know that he had equally strong opinions about serving dishes. He HATED my two rabbit tureens that had heads made out of bell peppers, etc. I always thought it would be fun to prepare him a meal of "animals" constructed of other foods. So I drew up these three animals and composed a short poem about each one, as if it was a Halloween potion. Because the poems reference the body parts of the animals, I decided to show the organs of one animal via an "organ x-ray". I do think that Dad would have liked that part, since he was always up for a good pun.

Designs of sweet and sour treats! Orange, lemon, vanilla and chocolate, yum!

I actually assumed our dad invented these!! Mom never made them (pancakes & waffles were her thing). This was his specialty & it was a treat since we never had them during the week. I always wondered why he called them “wink eyes” since it looked like a big wide open bug eyes to me.....maybe because he’d always give you that big exaggerated WINK when he served them ❤️❤️

memories can be sights, sounds, smells or feelings. my greatest food memory of grandmom schiehle is the giant coconut cake that was the centerpiece of a picnic every year. layered yellow cake and vanilla icing smothered with coconut. their backyard swooped down into a huge hill with a massive tree at the bottom. those too loom large in the memory. all were legendary. we’d race down the hill on picnic day. one year i ran right into the branches of that tree. i can still remember sitting in their bathroom having my face cleaned up from the cuts. still remember the smell of the soap. i envisioned this abstract paper sculpture, the cake transitioning into the hill. elegant and quiet. i asked my extended family, but unfortunately no one had preserved the original recipe. it will forever live in our memories though. American Greetings, please click on my name and look at my other paper sculptures too. thanks ! joanne.

FAVE MEMORY
I remember Santa filling my stocking with a tangerine and lots of candy! I ate it at 3 or 4 in the morning when we were full of anticipation and could not wait for daylight. One year our grandparents brought our family a giant candy cane. I believe it was around 6 inches in diameter and about a foot long. Of course I was just a little girl and it may have seemed bigger than it actually was. It was big though, and we had to break pieces off with a hammer! It lasted a long, long time even with our family of 9! Now that I think of it, the candy cane may have been even bigger than 6 inches in diameter. I do not know where they purchased this enormous piece of candy, but I sure enjoyed it and think of it every Christmas!

FAVE MEMORIES
My husband and I traveled to Mexico for our honeymoon. We spent a few days in Isla Holbox. We didn't know that saturday night over there is a big party for everyone. Everybody hits the streets, there's street food carts in the central plaza, people go to one bar to the next.
We found that little second-story terrace, very intimate, where we could see the whole street, they had a 2 for 1 promotion on margarita. We had a blast!

FAVE MEMORY: Gramma Helen called all closets “presses”....the linen press, the clothes press etc.
The kitchen had a cold press, a little room off the outside stairwell across from the kitchen. It was a cross between a pantry & a root cellar. It was so fresh & cool inside & a perfect place to hide on hot summer days. It ALWAYS had a bowl of fresh green grapes, never red! If we were good she’d get her kitchen shearers & snip off a bunch for us. Looking back, I recall fences of vines behind the old garage & wondering now if that’s where all the grapes came from😂

Fave memory - childhood days with my Suzy Homemaker oven that baked with a light bulb. It is my first memories of baking and I loved the tiny Jiffy boxes of mixes. I still have Suzy too!

Back in “ the day”, I don’t know anyone that escaped JELLO! The best part of jello was coming into the house & smelling the sugary/fruity explosion of the boiling water hitting those jewel like crystals! Between the smell & the visual of those brightly colored cubes, I confess, couldn’t resist.

Fave Memory: in the 70s my three sisters and i had some weird food tastes, like filling stuffed shells with peanut butter and baking them. my favorite weird food memory, though, would be the empty pickle jar. we would gather around it and drink the juice with straws. illustrated with my paper sculpture pickle. American Greetings, please click on my name and look at my other paper sculptures. thanks ! joanne