I would make a nice homedown (is that a word?) meal for my mom who passed Jan.06. Nothing fancy, she loved simple things. A nice tender steak with some noodles and butter on the side. Definitely corn on the cob and homegrown tomatoes. Diet coke and coffee were her drinks of choice.

Fun topic, but it makes me sad to think it won't happen.

Duane

Duane, please accept my condolences in the loss of your mother. Just from your words, I can picture how nice a meal it would be.

What a lovely thought. I would love to have a fried chicken dinner for my parents and grandparents as well as my husband's. I have had only my Mom since I was 17. All his family is gone too. My aunts and uncles as well.
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, home grown corn and green beans, cole slaw lime jello with pears for one dgm, homemade peach icecream and chocolate cake from the Hershey can recipe. Iced tea Oh yes, my maternal grandmother loved ginger snaps and Pepsi!! I loved family dinners as a little kid. It was all about the food. Those "picnics" were a fantasy for anybody's palate. I wish I could make Burnt sugar cake and angel food like my Mom and her cousin did. Oh my, this is making me tear up.
What a lovely thread this has become!

I would fix , fried green tomatoes, chicken and dumplings(Chase's sliders) sliced red tomatoes and cucumbers, collard greens with a ham hock in them , a skillet of corn bread baked in the oven and lots of iced tea. All of this would be for my mother and her mother, her father and her grandfather.

Duane, I am so sorry for your loss . I know exactly how you are hurting . I lost my mother on Dec 31, 2003 and each time that date rolls around , I get very sad.

The famous people at my table would be all my family who has passed. First, both my grandfathers who I never got to meet because they died before I was born. My great-grandmother who lived to be 94 and was a super person even when she could not stand, was blind and just loved hearing my brother and I's voices. My grandmother who lived with us and was just like my Mom. My other grandmother (my Mom's Mom) who lived in the country - worked on a farm all her life and the most she expected for a Christmas gift was a pack of chewing gum.

To all my Mom's siblings (and there were many) who are now all gone and my Dad's two sisters (only siblings) who are gone. My Father who is gone and two of my cousins. I want them all at the table with us again.

It would be one or two dinners. First would be our BIG Crab/Seafood Feast. Steamed Spiced Blue Crabs, Steamed Spiced Shrimp, Silver Queen Corn, Fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh baked bread with butter, hushpuppies and watermelon. Those were the days. My Uncle's back yard was packed with people and so much fun.

The other meal is Thanksgiving. What a feast and so much fun. Turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, desserts, etc, etc.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Mine would be either waffles or pancakes with fruit topping, real maple syrup, canadian bacon or fake sausage, cheese scrambled eggs and oj for my husband and kids on a Sunday morning. Hubby and I would have mimosas! Considering I have no hubby or kids, it's a real fantasy! Another option would be bagels, lox, lettuce, homegrown tomatoes, lowfat cream cheese, smoked whitefish, fruit salad and cappicinno with my lover over the Sunday paper. No, I don't have a lover either! Heck, I don't even have a waffle iron!
:)

Perhaps I have mentioned this fantasy picnic meal before, but here goes:

Place: somewhere beside a flowing river, there is a big Victorian "gingerbread" house with a green lawn that slopes down to the river's edge; there are sunny patches and shady areas with big trees

Guests: my family - Mom and Dad, sisters, 2 BIL, my two sons, 2 nephews, niece, and maybe my cousins too

Menu: lemonade, apple cider, iced tea to drink; lots of small sandwiches, pimiento cheese, tomato, chicken salad, cucumber, ham salad, cheese and chutney, etc., fried chicken, potato salad, sliced ripe summer tomatoes, my sister's homemade pickles, platters of sliced cantaloupe, for dessert sugar cookies, strawberries, and homemade peach ice cream that the guys have helped to churn.

Activities: croquet, badminton, Chicken Foot, fishing in the river, sittin' and talkin'.

Dress: white cotton dresses, straw hats, and parasols optional.

I think mine would be with my maternal grandparents and my dad's dad. I was lucky enough to have them until I was in my 20's and have lost all 3 of them in the last 9 years. My choice in meals would be a combination of Grandma's fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, strawberry shortcake and homemade ice cream. Added to that my grandpa's peach pie, peanut butter cookies and fudge. My grandpa was the best cook and baker. When he was growing up my grandpa's older brother went out on the farm and my grandpa stayed in and helped his mom with the cooking. He was the best cook and his beef and noodles were always the best. He passed that on to my dad who is also a great cook. The one thing I regret is that my grandparents didn't get to meet all their great grandbabies and the ones that are still to come. On my mom's side there are 24 great grandbabies.

Thanks for this post, even though it brings a few tears it brings back such happy memories.

Stacie
girlsingardens

I have been blessed in that since I learned to cook, and love cooking, and express my love by cooking, I have made many meals for all the people in my life for whom I would have fantasies about cooking meals for.

So, reading this thread made me wonder...who have I not cooked for that I would love to cook for? And what would I cook for them?

The answer came to me, after a bit of musing.

I would love to cook for the American soldiers who have died in service to our country with bellies full of unsatisfying military rations,carried with them into battle. Hard tack and salt pork, beans and jerky, cans of "stew", and packets of unrecognizable goop.

I would cook them anything they wanted to eat, and try my hardest to cook what they wanted just as they wanted it...the way their moms cooked it, or their grandmas, or their wives.

I would cook for my Mom and Dad, sister Cathy and Clive's parents along with all my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews.......OK not all my brothers! LOL

The meal would be our standard Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day meal. The one Mom always made and the one I still make.

Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, baked beans, homemade rolls, cauliflower and broccoli with cheese sauce, baked sweet potatoes and one or two other veggies dishes to shake things up a bit.

Well, initially I thought my fantasy dinner would be similar to the others with all of the family. Then, after more thought I realized that even in a fantasy it would be a disaster. So, I did more thinking.

The person I miss the most is my mother. She was killed when I was young. I never had the opportunity to know her after I was an adult so there's much I don't know of her. So, my fantasy meal would be a lunch with just my Mom.

I'm not sure what I'd cook? The food would be secondary to our conversation no matter how much love I put into its preparations. If it was this time of year, I think I'd go simple...homemade tomato/basil soup (topped with a little mound of finely minced fresh apple & crumbled bacon)with 1/2 a grilled cheese sandwich on homemade bread. I know Mom liked chocolate from conversations with Mom's sister, my aunt. So, I'd probably make decadent frosted brownies for dessert. Mom was a coffee lover...even at lunch. I'd be in trouble there 'cause I can't make decent coffee. Somehow, I don't think a lousy cup of coffee would be a problem.

What a nice thought! Yes, I would love to fix Mom lunch...just the two of us.

/tricia

Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses to this thread. I enjoyed reading every one of them. Interesting that on a cooking forum, so many of your posts are more concerned with the people around the table rather than the food on the table. Is it a coincidence that a lot of us have chosen what could be called comfort food?

Dukerdog, it sounds lovely and I wish it could happen.

Sissyfran, a wonderful picnic! I might have to try gingersnaps and Pepsi. I love gingersnaps and coffee on a cold morning.

Daylilydayzed, hugs to you in the loss of your mother.

Lpinkmountain, your post cracked me up. Thanks for the chuckle.

Teresa nc7, your post reminds me of a Seurat painting. The best part is that noone would be texting anyone or saying, "Excuse me, I need to take this call." (What is Chicken Foot?)

Dixiedog, could I be invited to the Crab Seafood Fest? Sounds wonderful.

Girlsingardens, youÂre going to need a lon-n-n-g table for all those grandbabies.

Rachelellen, what a beautiful, loving thought.

Chase, our Thanksgiving dinner is very much like my mother used to make. I wish I could ask her how she did some things, though.

Triciae, I donÂt think the coffee would be noticed, either.

So hereÂs to all our missing family members. Buon appetito!

Chicken Foot is a game played with domino tiles. It is called something else in the instructions that come with the tiles. It is really easy and fun played for money....i.e. pennies!

What a wonderful idea for a thread! I would only want my immediate family, my dad who passed 16 years ago this past August and my DH's dad who has been gone for 21 years. I would love for my boys to be able to meet their grandfathers who were so special to me and to my DH and are very definitely missed at every holiday.

I would love to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauces, veggies, etc. We would all eat too much, laugh too much, talk too much and watch football while the magic fairies did all the clean up.

Alexa

I cooked pepper steak with hamburger and homemade mashed potatoes tonight because I didn't have any real steak. The whole time I was making it I was thinking about how much Jeanne would like it. We would sit in our easy chairs and eat and have one last conversation, just small talk then everything would be ok. That's my fantasy meal.

I would cook a meal for my paternal grandmother who was better to me than my mother ever was, and whom I never got to cook for because she passed when I was about eighteen. I wasn't into cooking then except when I helped mother because I had to. My Gradmother always made my favorite dishes for me when I would go to her house. I would also have my Dad at the meal. He passed in January 07 and it had only been in recent years that he had begun getting to try new things and enjoyed them so much. It was wonderful to watch him as he tasted each dish new to him. My mother usually wouldn't taste anything new and if she did, she didn't like it.

It looks like most of us would love to cook for our loved ones.

I don't know what the meal would be, but if I could have anyone at my table, it would be my four grandparents, who I never really had the opportunity to know. I would love to have time with my grandparents when they were all the same age as myself--wouldn't that be a wonderful informative experience for someone who never knew her grandparents!

Annie, I think it would be a wonderful, informative experience for anyone to sit down to dinner with any oldsters who could be their grandparents or great grandparents.

I love older folks, I always have. There is of course the occasional bitter curmudgeon, but for the most part, if they understand that you are really interested, they can relate the most interesting and amazing stories and give you a perspective on the myriad things that make up life that can't be had by someone who hasn't lived as much of it.

It's interesting and heartening to note that nobody who has posted in this thread has said they wanted to cook dinner for some fatuous celebrity or pop culture "icon".