Mema's Meatballs

  There is something different about food people. Everyone eats food and has favorite meals, but food people love food.  We love talking about what we’re making for dinner, what new recipes we’ve tried, ingredients in recipes, what ingredients could make a recipe better and on and on and on.  Just in case I haven’t done a great job describing a food person, or if you’re questioning whether you you are in fact a food person, let me give you a real life comparison:

Not Food People:

Ryan and I had been married for a few years and I had been cooking dinner nearly every night for those years. I asked him how his dinner was and he said “It’s good.”  And that was it.  “It’s good?!” I asked, “”It’s good?!  I have been cooking for you for years and you have never said anything besides, it’s good.  What would it take for you to think something is better than good?” 

Food People:

A couple years after I moved to Colorado, my brother moved his family here for a year.  He invited us over for dinner one night and he had made roast beef sandwiches.  We grew up eating the most delicious roast beef sandwiches and he had nailed the recipe, the same way my parents made it.  He described the steps in detail, the cut of meat, the specific way he asked the butcher to slice it, and everything he did to prep dinner. 

We. Are. Food. People.  We are food people, we come from food people.  Food is in my heart and soul.  If you come to my home, and you don’t eat my food, I don’t like you.  I won’t trust you.  This is serious stuff. 

So Ryan is not a food person, but the first time my mom made meatballs for him, he was over the moon.  She had come to visit us and asked Ryan what he wanted for dinner.  Of course he didn’t know what to say (not a food person), so she started naming things she could make.  He stopped her at meatball sandwiches. 

That was it.  That was all it took for something to be more than “it’s good.”  And now I will share with you the life changing Mema’s Meatballs.