Exam #2 rough draft

When I think of family, food is among the thoughts that first that spring up in my mind. This may seem weird until you think about everything families can do together and realize that most of them involve some sort of food. Everyday family meals, baseball games, vacations, camping, desserts, and holidays are just among the few that mean something to my family and me.
In today’s world few families make the time to sit down together to enjoy an all important meal whether it is home-cooked, fast food, or store bought. Although my family didn’t have the time or the ability to sit down together for a meal every day, I remember making the effort several times a week. Enjoying a meal, no matter what type of food or even where the meal is being eaten, as a family provided my family time to talk about our day and what all we had to do during the week. Times shared between parents and children cannot be replaced. Meal times allow for bonding and memories that cannot be replaced.
For my family Cardinal baseball games include special memories when it comes to being a family with food. Every season my family tries to attend between two and four games a season because my younger sister and Dad really enjoy baseball. While at the games my mom, my younger sister, and myself always get the supreme nachos. These nachos are fully loaded with cheese, meat, sour cream, salsa, and jalapeño peppers. It’s something the girls in my family share and enjoy amongst each other. This tradition means a lot to me.
As a family that loves to travel to as many places as possible on vacation we take the opportunities to try new, different, or specialties of that area to try. When we were in New Orleans the food to try was the jambalaya and Creole food. Creole food that the girls in my family liked the most was the Cajun Creole shrimp. Another New Orleans’s dish that we were able to try was alligator. I enjoyed trying the alligator and thought it tasted like chicken in a way. While in New York as a family we were able to try New York style pizza as well as go to Cold Stone Creamery for the first time. The ice cream was a big hit for my family and we returned for a second time. Traveling to Mexico with my younger sister provided the opportunity to taste green salsa and other Mexican specialties. With school my mom and I got the chance to travel to Panama and Costa Rica where every meal was served with beans and rice.
Camping is the way my family vacations the most. My family enjoys grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, and brats while camping. Inside the camper foods my mom cooks include baked beans, hominy, and macaroni and cheese. Potato salad, salad, and chips are favorites and easy while camping. Lunch meat sandwiches and BLTs also satisfy our taste buds. Camping is something my whole family enjoys doing together and allows us to make lots of memories.
Desserts rank at the top of many people’s favorite food lists. Homemade pies made for Thanksgiving such as pecan, cherry, custard, and pumpkin allows there to be someone for everyone to enjoy. Homemade chocolate cake made by my grandma draws the whole family around the table to enjoy a piece sometimes with ice cream. Also among the favorite desserts in my family is the variety of candies my mom makes at Christmas time. She makes around five different kinds of fudge, puppy chow, caramel chow, caramels, nutty noodle, and toffee. Rolled up pie crust with cinnamon-sugar are the perfect bite size dessert made by my grandma’s loving hands, which we affectionately we call Circle Things. My favorite dessert is Sour Cream Pound Cake. This cake is delicious and makes me smile every time my grandma makes it for me especially on my birthday. Desserts are not the only special foods for the holidays.
When it comes to holiday meals my family can be quite unusual. For New Years our favorite meal to eat is side pork, fried potatoes, leaf lettuce, beans, and cornbread. This food is always good and said to bring luck. Easter varies from year to year. We could have ham one year and fried rice and spring rolls the next. Thanksgiving is pretty much the expected food of turkey, dressing, two types of homemade rolls, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and gravy. My family however, also has three types of cranberry sauce, cole slaw, crock pot and regular corn, and green beans. Christmas and food at my house is a different story. On Christmas Eve we have barbeque or ham sandwiches, chips, pickles, and lots of different kinds of dips and crackers. Some of our favorite dips are hot chicken, cheese ball, and shrimp dip. The reason my family does snack type food is so we have time to open presents by a decent time. The past food choices on Christmas Day get even stranger for most people. We do not eat turkey or any other food that is normally ate. Some years my dad grills ribs outside, other times my grandma and Mom cook homemade fried chicken, and still others we eat spring rolls and fried rice. Holidays are a time for good food and family togetherness.
Food and family go together in everyone’s life. They get combined when people eat their evening meals, go to baseball games, go on vacation, take a camping trip, enjoy desserts at special occasions, and during holidays.