So Mother’s Day is still over a month away. However, I just had a cooking question and I emailed my mom, she promptly replied with the answer and now I can have dinner tonight. And it made me feel grateful for her, all over again. Not just that she’s my mom and she’s awesome and she knows so much, but that she’s always there for even the little stuff.
i was thinking that I don’t need a special day to profess my love and admiration for her. But this year, I will be so glad for the arrival of this pseudo-holiday for one reason.
Then Hulu will finally stop playing that horrible commercial about breast cancer. EVERY episode of EVERY show that I watch it is on during EVERY commercial break. It’s awful, non-compelling, and way too long. And each time it comes on I think, “seriously, I have to put up with this for three, two, one more month(s)?” Now that MD is only five weeks away it’s almost over, but I still have to watch it every day for five more weeks.
Unbearable.
So, bring on the day to celebrate Moms. Let people walk for breast cancer. Allow me to celebrate my mom any old time I want. And for God’s sake, quit showing that damn commercial.
I, honestly, cannot remember what brought me here. I was working and suddenly I had this intense flashback to something I ate when I was a child.
Kraft egg noodle and chicken dinner.
Do you remember this?
It was right by the macaroni and cheese, but the box was brown, not blue. It was delicious. I liked it better than mac-and-cheese, but for some reason we didn’t have it very often.
It popped into my head and I finally decided to google it to see if they still made it. I would have bought it online, just to try it again and see what sort of memories it brought back. I also wonder if it tastes like I remember it tasting. Or smells like I remember it smelling.
I even tried to find a picture of it, but I couldn’t. Apparently, no one took pictures of it in the 1980s. However, I did find this:
It looked exactly like that, except it was brown and instead of “Cheddar Cheese” it said “Chicken”.
Then, I did find this:
Apparently, in the late 1990s they revamped the box. However, in 2009 they discontinued the product altogether. Isn’t that sad? If you do a web search for the product you will read testimonials and reviews of people begging Kraft to bring the product back.
There are stories of mothers cooking it for children, the memories it invokes, the idea of it being the ultimate comfort food. There is even a Facebook page dedicated to bringing it back. I empathize with them all. It is a strong memory for me. It is the taste of my childhood. I don’t have a ton of food memories from when I was a kid. Like most kids, eating was that thing your mother made you do in between bouts of play. My food memories are mostly because of the story. Like when my dad brought Tabbouleh home from work on a night he was in charge of dinner. It was awful. But he made us eat it. We couldn’t leave the table until we ate it. I think it was the latest we ever stayed at the table in my childhood. Or the week my mother went to Mexico with friends and my dad bought a ham the day she left and then proceeded to feed us ham for seven straight days.
But those are rare for me. For most children, I think. We didn’t focus on what we ate, we just ate. However, I can clearly recall going to the grocery store with my mother and asking her to buy the egg noodle chicken dinner, instead of just macaroni and cheese. And she would, but she didn’t always. It was not a staple at our house. It was special. It was a treat.
Like I said, I don’t know how I got here, but it was a nice little side trip back into the 1980s. If this evoked memories for you, go to youtube and look up Kraft macaroni and cheese commercials. I was shocked at how many of them I clearly remember.
“Make some Kraft macaroni and cheese, PLEASE!” They had a jingle. I had forgotten it until I heard it. It’s there, but do you remember this one?
My brothers and I used to sit at the table and do that to each other with our spoons whenever we had mac and cheese. Clear as day I can recall that, sitting at the dining room table, in front of the patio door. Mom would serve us and we would hold up our spoons and pretend to hypnotize each other and get each other to say “cheese and macaroni” instead. And we’d flit our eyes back and forth like that until we were overcome with the giggles.
Come on, Kraft, you’re as popular as you’ve ever been. Bring back my savory chicken dinner. PLEASE.
There is a commercial that is airing right now. I see it ALL. THE. TIME. Like every single commercial break.
It is done entirely in black and white and it is shots of pregnant women with messages written on their bellies.
Do you know this commercial?
I strongly dislike this commercial. I find it chilling, dark, and depressing. The point is to try to keep babies from being born HIV positive, and it touts a charitable organization. Fine. That’s good. Very good. I’m all for eradicating disease in babies. However, I don’t think the message comes across the way they intended.
Or maybe it does.
Maybe they’re trying to scare the crap out of people to call attention to it. If so, I find it a bad choice. I wouldn’t visit their website for anything–out of protest for this terrible commercial. I’m not even going to mention it in the blog, so if YOU want to check it out, you have to see the commercial yourself.
I’m just not a huge fan of the “do or die” mentality. There are plenty of ways to get your message across without taking one of the most magical stages of a woman’s life and turning it into horrible darkness.
The first time I saw it, I literally got a chill down my spine. It made me feel sick. That doesn’t inspire me to feel pity or empathy and to extend my hand in friendship or whatever. At this time of year, when everyone is in need, you need to be powerful without causing guilt, or fear, or sadness, or pain, because if you do–you’ll lose me.
These people lost me the very first time. I actually flipped the channel to get away from it and never even saw the point. That’s how much I didn’t like it. But, unfortunately for me, this commercial is blanketing the airwaves (at least on ION, which is what I watch) and I can’t get away from it. So, I’ve seen the whole thing and it doesn’t get better.
If I were in charge of the world, every commercial would be like this one, especially at the holidays. Or this one. Or this one, which is probably my favorite commercial–and sends shivers down my spine in a good way, every time I’ve seen it. If I were in charge of the world, people would look forward to commercial breaks because they were funny, uplifting, and left you feeling good. That’s how we should feel every moment during the holidays.
Livlife 