Family Food Memories (W2)

It is weird that something as simple and small as a cheese dip is something that represents my family. It started as a tradition that my dad, sister and I would do every Friday. After work, we would decide what we wanted for “Pizza Friday” as we called it. A lot of times we would eat pizza; however it was really just whatever bad food we wanted to eat for the night. One of the options that we could have was Cheese Dip. It was a combination of melted Velveeta cheese dip, medium spicy salsa and chopped up hamburger.

This meant simple dip meant a lot to my sister and me. Not only was it delicious, but when we were very young, it was just something that we could eat that was not healthy. For my sister, it was probably a trick my dad used to introduce her to more vegetables (since she was an extremely picky eater). As we started growing older, my father would give us knives (that were like the safety scissors of knives so that we did not hurt ourselves), but sharp even to cut cheese. Then after we were slightly older and were able to comprehend oven and stove safety, my father allowed us to cook the meat and put the entire concoction together. It was one of the first (if not the first) thing my sister and I learned to cook. We loved cooking with our father and it was simple enough that when we were old enough to remember how to make it, we tried to impress our father that we could do it on our own. This was the first step in the process of my father teaching how to cook other foods that were much more difficult; such as a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.

Cheese Dip is a very simple dish. It led to such a tradition for my father, sister and me. We still make it to this day. My sister made it for my father and I right before I went back to school. Although it is just a dip that is hardly enough for a full meal, it is something that we cherish. It brings us together and is truly a childhood memory that will always remain special to me. It is proof that is the little things in life that makes the biggest impact.