Tastes like home

I will freely admit that my mother can't bake like I can. I don't think she's ever made us bread, and I had taken over the dessert-making onus of the household by the time I was 12 or 13.

But she sure can cook.

There are a few dishes that I would get particularly excited to have her make for dinner when I was a kid. Red beans and rice was one of them. Mom would soak the dried kidney beans overnight and then slowly boil them with onion and green bell pepper until they were thick and impossibly creamy. There would always be some kind of sausage (even, if we'd just been to visit Louisiana, real andouille), thyme, Tony Chachare's, and a bay leaf or two that may or may have gotten pulled out of the pot before the ravening hordes descended upon it. Even though I didn't have Tabasco and had to use cayenne, and even though I put in Morningstar veggie sausage instead of anything close to authentic, I'm happy to report that my red beans and rice were delicious.

But I'm happier to report that they were nowhere close to as delicious as Mom's.