Maybe it's because I grew up on my mother's cooking that I didn't realize how special it was until I was grown. What she made was all I knew for a lot of years. And if it wasn't my mother's cooking I was eating, it was one of my grandmothers', so I was extremely fortunate and spoiled on the food front as a child, and really the whole time I lived at home.
My nieces loved my mother's cooking and didn't take it for granted as I probably did growing up. My mom lived with them for a time, and so they, too, grew up on her cooking. My mom's food is simple, Southern food, made with ordinary ingredients and no hard-to-source spices. It pleases everyone, young and old. Although my nieces enjoy a much more expansive variety of foods now that they are adults, they will both tell you there is nothing quite as satisfying as coming home to my mother's chicken-fried steak, skillet potatoes and a pan of her brownies.
