The Good Food Song TM

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people want good food. And it is a truth in my family that when we find that good food… we’re gonna hum about it. Or dance about it. It’s the good food song, the happy bite shuffle, the song of our people.

Good food is in my roots like good, loamy soil. If I’m a happy little tomato plant it’s because I was grown with good food, whole food, new food. My mom, who you’ll meet in this blog if you haven’t met her already (through her cozy NYE parties, our multiple daily FaceTime calls, at every elementary school/high school/college event), raised me with food at the core of it all.

If you didn’t know already, my sweet sweet mama is an award winning cookbook author, chef, teacher, holistic health counselor, public speaker, ski bum, and chocolate mousse enthusiast (two of those things she hasn’t actually won awards for). From as young as I can remember, food has been her life’s work. Which means that food, and the creation of it, has also, in large part, characterized much of my life. I grew up with cooking classes filling my childhood home’s kitchen, faces of new strangers and old friends crowded into our pre-renovation dining area while my mom banged out dish after dish in our Came With The House Crappy Oven. You can ask her about her helpers in the early days (me, wink wink) and the time I sneezed all over the freshly made dessert. You can ask her about the time she accidentally started Self Clean on the oven with a lasagna in there and 16 paying students ready to eat. You can ask her about the years and years of our lives where dinner WAS recipe testing… most of the time out of this world delicious, and sometimes very much not. We came home to new, amazing food from full days at school. She’d been creating this dish. All day. All for one perfect bite.

My mom is also a big part of one of The Nest’s core beliefs: that nourishing the body means nourishing the soul. I’ve joyfully eaten just as much nori and sauerkraut with my mom as I have pizza and a damn good french fry. And all of it feeds the soul. All of it nourishes in its own respect. Take a listen to my first Little Nest Pod (we’re trying something here) to hear her wax poetic about bread.

So the good food hits your mouth. It mingles with your tastebuds. And you just can’t help but let slide a melody, do a little shimmy. That right there, my friends, is the sign you’ve fed your body. The sign you’ve eaten well. The sign you’ve nourished your soul. The Good Food Song TM happens at kitchen tables and standing on sidewalks and at picnic tables with chocolate ice cream dripping down your fingers (this one specifically relates to my dear Grampa. I heard him hum for a bite of Tiramisu at his 95th Birthday dinner). It happens in restaurants you waited MONTHS to experience. Hunker down and forget the other patrons can see you. This is how you know you’ve struck gold.

You can find my dear mom on instagram @terrywalterscooks and on her website www.terrywalters.net – there, you’ll find lots of lovely content including: pictures of food! Recipes! Pictures of dogs! FOUR whole cookbooks! And so much more 🙂