humanity
Humanity topics include pieces on the real lives of chefs, professionals, amateurs, inspiring youth, influencers, and general feel good human stories in the Feast food sphere.
My favourite summer food!
I find summer so difficult, my body cannot handle heat and I always feel so drained. Even with fans on and a pool out it was too hot to function. Ice lollies dripping and children struggling to enjoy themselves because its too warm will always haunt my memories. The amount of times me or a sibling passed out from heat stroke was ridiculous. Not to mention the sunburn that you could still feel a week later. I’ve always enjoyed those late summer nights though, the ones where everyone comes over to have fun in the back. A bouncy castle for the special occasions or some water pistols for the other times. The promise of a barbeque as it sizzles away trying to light. That will always be my favourite summer food! It didn’t matter whether it was a massive barbeque that could cook more food than could be eaten and with so much variety of food or just a small throwaway one with just burgers and hotdogs. Every time we popped to Tesco’s of a Friday afternoon and grabbed burger buns we knew it would be one of those magical nights. My favourite barbeque food has always been those spicy strips of pork. The ones where the juices drip down your hands as you eat and each bite burns because you have no patience to wait for it to cool down. The burgers and sausages were always amazing as well even if they were the exact same ones you eat every single week, somehow barbequing them makes them taste so much better. I remember so many summer nights spent with the music playing and the barbeque burning away nicely that I think it will always be my most favourite time of year. It sure beats those days having the same old bland food that you come to expect when living from pay packet to pay packet. I don’t think I could name a single food I disliked on those nights even when there was so much choice you ate way to much. Summer for me will always taste just like those barbequed sausages and burgers. Even when they were burnt they were so much better than just regular sausages. I remember vividly the amount of times me and my siblings chose a barbeque over any takeout’s that were offered. I remember the summer holidays being filled with barbeques and sandwiches, being able to eat so much of an evening that you didn’t start to feel hungry until lunch time the next day. Every year the variety got better and more foods were added to the barbeque. It got to the point where we had to cook food in the ovens as well as there was just so much food and the barbeque didn’t cook fast enough. I laugh now but those days were definitely the best days of my childhood and are days I fondly look back on now I’m grown and have children of my own. I always thought getting all that food put together looked easy and cooking it on the barbeque made so much sense but since trying to have one of those evenings myself I realise just how much effort goes into making it a memorable night. I don’t quite know how my parents did it week after week and made it look easy. Even as an adult I still enjoy those rare get togethers with my family and showing my own children just a little piece of my childhood. Even if I never learn how to barbeque that well I know that will be one of my fondest memories for a lifetime.
By CosmicAngel4 years ago in Feast
Summer All Year Long. Runner-Up in Summer Camp Challenge.
Summer is food. Trying to sum it up in one food seems impossible. It makes it doubly hard because I spend my summers putting my fresh local vegetables and fruits in jars so I have them for the winter. Depending on the year, we can put up between 400-800 jars. We try to have a good supply of around 1,000 jars by the end of summer between one house and the other.
By Kathryn Wicker4 years ago in Feast
The Third Ingredient. Top Story - June 2022.
I am seven years old. We live in England, near Norwich. My dad’s business has exploded, and we are suddenly wealthy. He buys a proper English country house, something of a dream of his. It has a big garden, and my dad - rather optimistically, considering English weather - buys a barbeque.
By Madoka Mori4 years ago in Feast
Think of Summer Days Again
One particular Fourth of July, like every fourth of July, the entire clan was descending on our house. Grandma, a powdered and perfumed version of William Tecumseh Sherman whose pats on the back stung for a good five minutes. Grandpa, who slid into a room like a shadow, settled in a chair and was happiest when everyone forgot he was there, just as long as he had a good view of the yard and the birds and any chipmunks that might venture forth. Dad’s sisters and brother and their families: calm, capable, brilliant Marion; dramatic Phyllis, the rule-breaker; Charlie, the baby, who looked up to his older brother and secretly feared he would never measure up. Great aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, some older folks whose connection to the family was so impenetrable that we gave up trying to figure it out and just enjoyed their company. With girlfriends, boyfriends, new partners, visiting students there might be twenty people coming to the house or there might be forty. This family carnival meant that summer was truly here, sticky, sweaty, breath-robbing summer in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
By Joyce Sherry4 years ago in Feast
The Hangover Cure
It was 2015. My good friend, Solomon, had just moved to Chicago. Cole, another good friend and Solomon’s childhood neighbor, jumped in the car with my wife and me. Katie was about eight months pregnant, but I was the first one to ask to stop at a rest stop. I still get a hard time for that one.
By Noah Glenn4 years ago in Feast
Marshmallow Memories of Summer
Like the clouds against a clear azure summer sky, Marshmallow Memories look different through the eyes of each of us. My first memories of these fluffy wonders bring my mind to the way my Grandma was the anchor that kept the family together. Every get-together, from family reunions to barbecues in her backyard, would always come back to the meal course that everyone raved about; her fruit salad dessert. Sure, anyone could make it, with all its simplicity, but it was hers. She owned that sweet flavor of canned mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits, with maraschino cherries scattered perfectly enough to make the thick sour cream smoother, sweeter, and turn it light pink. But the cherries, ironically, were not the “cherry on top”. An entire bag of marshmallows was mixed thoroughly into each batch to make it into everyone’s stored subconscious, that no matter who made it in the future, we see my Grandma’s angel face smiling at us with every bite.
By Katie Foltz4 years ago in Feast
