We were a family that made our Halloween costumes. Or, more accurately, my mother made them. She took no suggestions or advice. Halloween costumes were her territory. She was the brain behind my brother's winning girl costume, stuffing her own bra with newspapers for him to wear under a cashmere sweater and smearing red lipstick on his lips.
Many think of memory as rote learning, a linear stuffing of the brain with facts, where understanding is irrelevant. When you teach it properly, with imagination and association, understanding becomes a part of it.
My most memorable meal is every Thanksgiving. I love the food: the turkey and stuffing; the sweet potatoes and rice, which come from my mother's Southern heritage; the mashed potatoes, which come from my wife's Midwestern roots; the Campbell's green-bean casserole; and of course, pumpkin pie.
I felt completely at home in Mexico - speaking Spanish to my cousins, running around Acapulco and stuffing my face with mole and homemade tortillas. Mexico opened my heart.
In deference to American traditions, my family put our oven to rare use at Thanksgiving during my childhood, with odd roast-turkey experiments involving sticky-rice stuffing or newfangled basting techniques that we read about in magazines.
I hate actual newspapers. In my opinion, they are only good for wrapping up presents or cleaning mirrors. Or packing boxes. Or stuffing into knee-high boots to help retain their shape. Or using for fun crafts. Okay, I don't hate actual newspapers, I guess.
I can make dressing - or stuffing. Y'all call it stuffing up here, we call it dressing down there. It's really good dressing. That family recipe was passed on, and I love to make that.
I get great pleasure from stuffed foods, from an apple strudel to a vegetable samosa, from a whole roasted bird with a sweet and savoury stuffing to a vine leaf filled with rice and spices.
Stuffing is evil. Stuffing adds mass, so it slows the cooking. That's evil because the longer the bird cooks, the drier it will be.
Oh literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow in our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!