I'm a time traveling nostalgic fool

Think time travel is tough? Nah. We all do it, practically every day.

I've just come back from the early 1970s, Xmas eve, dressed in my flannel footie jammies, my long brown hair frazzled with excitement, as I open my packages. The shag carpet is green and long (you could lose a small kitten in it, I'm sure). The furniture is Early American, and the picture window drapes are heavy olive-green numbers backed with a strange rubbery substance to keep out light. My little brother is in the picture somewhere, but he's important only in that he stays out of my path to the presents. In the corner of the living room is the red brick cardboard fireplace that my dad would assemble every Xmas season for us to pin our stockings on, in hopes Santa would fill them with the usual nuts, hard candies, and hopefully a few small toys.

So how did I travel backward thirty years? I've just finished off a sugar cookie my son made last night. The taste of a sugar cookie instantly places me in my childhood home, the scent of vanilla, sugar and flour filling the air, and always it's Xmas and Elvis Presley is singing about a white one, because that's when Mom dragged out the dozens of cookie cutters and rolling pin and worked all day to make treats for us.

If I nibble a square of rhubarb, I'm magically transported to my Grandma's garden, sitting on a blanket next to my brother. I've been given the cup of sugar to hold, while grandma hacks off a few huge stalks of rhubarb and hands them to us. We dip the juicy thick end in the sugar and savor. We never cut of the big leafy end; that's the cool part--the trio of us, sitting there with our rhubarb cigars, roasting in the summer sun.

Hamburger invariably transports me back to 1973 (I'm 8) and the evening news is playing in the living room as I stare at a huge chunk of uncrumbled, tough, cold hamburger (a remnant of the lasagna my mother cooked. I can't fathom eating that chunk, so utterly solid and not mixed with anything, so it is literally a slab of cow. It is HUGE. My mother (in a rare stubborn streak) insists I not leave the table until I clean my plate. I sit for over an hour, and I'm sure I hear M*A*S*H playing in the other room (which I love) but I cannot choke it down. I am hot and clammy at the same time. My throat has shut off. I Can Not Do It. I go to bed immediately that night, the hamburger chunk sitting somewhere in the garbage can (where it belongs) To this day hamburger disturbs me. Just ask my kids, whom I always summon to assist should I need to fry hamburger for a recipe. And please, chop it in tiny bits. When they've finished, I have to grab a fork and go at the cooked crumbles myself, ensuring they are microscopic. (And no, it is NOT crumbled finely enough in this pic. Somebody get the fork!) Yikes! Talk about a traumatic trip! Back to the present, please!

I've got thousands of pleasant taste travels. The icey Mr. Freeze treats place me on a bicycle, my 10 yr old legs peddling through the neighborhood, happy as a cat with cream. Roast beef and dumplings transport me to my grandma's kitchen, stirring with a stew of relatives, the windows fogged because grandma has been cooking all morning for a big family event. Vanilla ice cream will now place me in a trendy little restaurant across from the Trocadero in Paris where I tasted the most divine ice cream ever only this year. SweetTarts bring me back to my first kiss...


Oh no, I don't kiss and tell!

So what's your favorite taste travel? Are there some foods that always bring you to the same place, or can they change locations?
Michele