November, nostalgia

I successfully spatchcocked and roasted a chicken last week. like this. all the leftovers from it have been eaten up, along with the leftovers of sesame rolls, vegetable gruyere gratin, roast broccoli, cream puffs, pumpkin pie, and shortbread cookies.

 

eating cold leftover chicken reminded me of so many long-ago moments. most surprisingly, somehow, I remembered my dad teaching me how to eat chicken. how to eat chicken doesn't seem like a thing one needs to be taught, yet I remember his voice and mannerisms explaining which bits are called gristle and which are meat, and pointing out the small chicken muscles that nestled in the corners and caves of the bones.

when we added a citrus glaze to the spiced shortbread cookies the other day, I had another shock of nostalgia, all vivid and unmistakable despite its utter lack of context or timeline. just the sights and smells of fluffy angel food cakes, the bright neon of food coloring, and somewhere nearby my paternal grandmother's presence. she was probably visiting for my brother's summer birthday or something. 

what are holidays for, if not for encapsulating and preserving all the random, imperfect, priceless snippets of nostalgia like these?