Every parent wants to leave a legacy for their kiddos.  Here’s how three remarkable fathers took time to cook up a legacy of love for their own children: 

MY FATHER is 80 years old and suffers from Alzheimer’s. Here is what he taught me about life and cooking and the kitchen:

Take time to eat a hot breakfast with your kids. On school days, my father made me hot oatmeal everyday for breakfast. I didn’t particularly like it, but I liked having breakfast with him. On the weekends, my dad would fry eggs, always over easy, and thick, fat bacon. Sometimes, my mom would make homemade biscuits and my father would always tell me the same story. About how they ate a lot of biscuits during the Great Depression, and his dear momma would stick her big fat thumb in the side of the biscuit and pour honey in it. Today, this is how my children eat biscuits. If there is no honey in the cabinet someone must go to the store to buy some.

Disneyworld is an adventure, but so is Sassafrass Tea.  One day, when I was 12 years old, my father and I went flower hunting in Upshur County, which is located in East Texas. He found an old Sassafras tree, from which he took a limb. We took it home and cut it into pieces and my father boiled it in a pot on the stove. We had sassafras tea for months.

Life is too short to not make homemade pies. Even if they suck. My father came to visit me once by himself soon after I got married. I asked him what his favorite pie was and he said raisin. The only recipe I could find for such a pie called for sour cream. And, so I made my father a sour cream raisin pie, and we marveled in disgust over all those bloated raisins fixed in sweet sour cream, and laughed at horrible it tasted.

Never pass up an opportunity to buy a gallon of milk. Growing up, my father was always going somewhere – to the grocery store to fetch more milk and more bread. My father could drink an entire gallon of milk in a day. He blamed it on the Great Depression, during which time there was never enough milk. ~Jennifer James, Author of Are You There God? It’s Me, Generation X

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GROWING UP, we didn’t get many “I love you’s” or hugs and kisses from our dad, it just wasn’t his way.  His communication came in the form of lectures, which my sister’s and I tried to avoid at all costs. One year, my mother became busier with work, so it was Dad who took to the kitchen. Dad always used the freshest ingredients, going to farmers’ markets and stores that were an hour away just for the perfect tomato, or ear of corn, which also meant that dinner was often at 9 or 10, but it was always worth the wait. While we waited, we could often hear a “Woo!” or a “Pow!” as he was working; there were always theatrics of some sort. And the end result—an absolutely delicious meal that he had even given a name, like Goomiligosh, or my personal favorite, Ohmiligosh. 

Over the years I realized that each dish that he so lovingly prepared was a representation of all the things he could never bring himself to say to us, like an, “I love you more than you’ll ever know,”  right there on our plates. Every life lesson he wanted to teach us was taught in the kitchen: Don’t settle for anything less than the best. Take the time to do things right. Take pride in whatever you do. Oh– and never use white salt. ~Shayla Perry, Author of Just Perryfect

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I HAVE ALWAYS loved to eat and I simply adored my father, so hanging out in the kitchen while he whipped up some culinary delight was a double joy for me. Dad would rarely cook with recipes and even when he did he always added his own special touch. His advice was that when you put in a little something extra into your dish, it really become your own.
Amazingly, Dad seemed to always know the right thing to add to make his meals savory. Even something as simple as pancake batter, although the box boasted that you only needed to add water, Dad believed that it was not really complete until he added a raw egg and a little buttermilk along with the water. Trust me ~ this special touch takes boxed batter to a completely different dimension of taste. My Beloved Dad passed away on April 30, 2010 but he will always be a main ingredient in my heart and life.  ~Val McLeod, Master Speaker/Certified Trainer

CALL FOR COMMENTS:  How did your  father cook up a legacy of love?  How are you using the kitchen to create memorable moments with your own children?

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