{"id":2705,"date":"2015-05-08T22:44:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T03:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.loveselfmagazine.com\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2015-06-20T03:26:12","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T08:26:12","slug":"the-love-of-a-mother-and-the-joy-of-a-salad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.loveselfmagazine.com\/the-love-of-a-mother-and-the-joy-of-a-salad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Love of A Mother and the Joy of a Salad"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The love of gardening and a joy of a salad. A young woman honors her mother and the nurturer in all of us.<\/h3>\n

Often times, when we create something especially mouthwatering or exquisite in the kitchen, we\u2019re asked to reveal our secret ingredient: a pinch of this, a shake of that. The response my mom always tells us is, \u201clove.\u201d Love is a versatile ingredient; it adds another dimension\u2014a subtle flavor<\/strong>, a comforting consistency, that extra oomph, to any dish we prepare.<\/p>\n

To my mother\u2014Laura Carter, a small but mighty woman in her fifties, with whitened hair and a smile sweet as honey\u2014food is more than just a source of sustenance. In her world, food is a checkpoint\u2014preparing dinner the final leg, and serving it the finish line of her daily race; it\u2019s her way of self-expression, a projection of who she really is, a representation of her tastes and preferences, and it\u2019s also a gift to all that enjoy it, including herself, that says, \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The running joke amongst my friends is that every meal my mom makes will contain something \u201cfrom the garden,\u201d as she\u2019s fond of saying. We come from a family of Norwegian farmers\u2014people with a fair complexion, of short and sturdy in build, with strong calves made for hours spent crouching in the earth. Most of our traditional comfort food centers around the vegetables grown in my mother\u2019s garden.<\/p>\n

\"Laura's<\/p>\n

Taking care of a garden is like taking care of a child; it\u2019s dirty work, and requires patience and love:<\/strong> first the planting, then the endless watering and weeding, ending finally with the harvest. I\u2019ve helped out many times before, picking peas and strawberries, but my few hours spent harvesting are nothing compared to how many my mother spends every summer turning a handful of seeds into a fresh meal. Her dedication and hard work never ceases to amaze or inspire me.<\/p>\n

\"Emma<\/p>\n

Vegetable soup, potato salad, and strawberry shortcake are all fine examples of her best dishes, but her specialty, and my favorite, is her <\/strong> Spring Gardeners Salad<\/a>. My mother can turn simple produce into a work of art. Her salads are beautifully crafted, colorful and bursting with flavor. When dinner is served, and the salads are dished out, my mother always eats hers at the end of the meal. It\u2019s her treat, and she wants to savor it. Other salads can\u2019t compare to my mother\u2019s\u2014not even in the fanciest restaurants\u2014because every leaf of lettuce, strip of pepper, bright strawberry, and bit of carrot was given life by her own hands.<\/p>\n

\"Strawberry\"<\/p>\n

To my mother, preparing a salad is showing someone how much you love them.<\/strong> Her work in the garden gives her personal satisfaction, but her pleasure working in the kitchen depends on the reaction her meal brings. It took me a long time to realize this, but I finally did, and through soups and salads my mother and I developed a stronger bond that we still share today. We love preparing meals together and we\u2019re always looking for a new recipe to experiment with, but we\u2019ll never forget the recipes that brought us together in the first place<\/strong>, or that one special ingredient that makes every meal taste like home.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The love of gardening and a joy of a salad. A young woman honors her mother and the nurturer in all of us. Often times, when we create something especially mouthwatering or exquisite in the kitchen, we\u2019re asked to reveal our secret ingredient: a pinch of this, a shake of that. The response my mom always tells us is, \u201clove.\u201d Love is a versatile ingredient; it adds another dimension\u2014a subtle flavor, a comforting consistency, that extra oomph, to any dish we prepare. To my mother\u2014Laura…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[71,63],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirational-people","tag-gardening","tag-organic"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Love of A Mother and the Joy of a Salad - LoveSelf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The love of gardening and a joy of a salad. 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