Happy Mother’s Day!

In News by Carla

Ohhh Mother’s day!
For many this is a special day and I am no exception.
When I was a little girl growing up I lived in a rural town located in North Dakota. Yep. I know this is probably a surprise to most of you but I did grow up a farm girl. Horses, dogs, cats, tractors and sometimes chickens–oh my!
If my sisters and I followed instructions? An ideal summer day would go a little something like this: Wake up, do our chores around the house, and then on my Mom’s lunch break from work? She would come home and take us into the pool for an afternoon of swimming. The rule was swimming would only happen IF we had accomplished our tasks. These jobs ranged from weeding the garden, doing the dishes, sweeping the floor—general things. Typically we would goof around until the VERY last minute and RUSH to get our chores done so we could go SWIMMING at the local pool!!
I’ve forgotten how old I was, but one faithful summer I had recently been released into the kitchen. I could begin creating simple low-heat dishes. The microwave was in my permission field but the stovetop and oven were NOT. I decided quite early on that I was a chef—just like on television. No one told my I couldn’t be. Have you ever watched cooking shows– or any professional in their fields? They have a knack for making things look deceptively simple. Now an important detail to know about my early creative cooking processes was I had not noticed these chefs really TASTING their food. I did take into account how beautiful the presentation was though.
One day I wanted to make a lunch for my Mom to eat once she got home for her lunch hour. I created a super elegant salad for her. Now I was being so original that I even made my own dressing! Being somewhat observant I knew that my mom liked ranch style dressing. This was going to be the inspiration I used for making her an original-just-for-her dressing. 
After surveying the refrigerator– and ignoring the ranch dressing– I knew that mayonnaise was just the ticket for this special project! With a fork I mixed a few fat globs of mayonnaise with some vigorous shakes of powdered parmesan cheese and put that on the salad. Since I loved parmesan cheese so much myself? I was sure to put some extra parmesan shakes on top. Good.
My last and final step for this master piece was to adorn the top of this simple salad. And by simple, I mean it only had lettuce leaves making up the salad. I just wasn’t that into vegetables at the time. This seemed like a great idea to omit them! Well, the special surprise garnish? Was the honey nut cheerios I put on top! I thought myself QUITE clever.
My Mom was super. It was only YEARS later, when we were laughing about silly things we had done that she reminded me of the special salad she had choked down. At the time I never knew it was less than spectacular. My Mom’s encouragement of me finding my own ways to create and problem solve allowed me to grow naturally in both confidence and ability to think and express myself creatively in all facets of my life. This is one of the MANY, MANY gifts that she has given me.
I am so thankful for you Mom! Right now I am on the other side of the globe, but I would love to be able to give you a big hug! Happy Mother’s Day to the MOST amazing Mom I know! 
My beautiful family!