Mom's Birthday

Today was my mom's birthday, she would have been 62. I'm a naughty daughter, and I haven't called my father. I don't deal well with his emotions anymore, so I just don't deal with them at all. Bad. Bad. Bad. I was thinking of them both today. So in honor of it being Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday, and mom's birthday, I made roasted chicken and egg noodles in honor of mom. It was the one meal my mother could not screw up, except that period of time she ate garlic alllll the time and sliced it into the dish, not crushing it first to get those special flavors mixed in the clove. YUK. I have yet to replicate her recipe, and maybe never will, but the oldest said "This chicken is bangin' with the noodles." I try. At least I didn't burn the food. I'm good about that. I didn't learn to cook from my mother. I learned how not to cook from her. Except the chicken and noodle thing. Brother and Sister both agree with me, that the chicken and egg noodles was her best meal. Everything else, I learned from the motherly-types around me, friends, neighbors, and even celebrities. My turkey gets cooked upside down, because that's how Celine Dion does hers. At least that's what she said on Oprah 13 years ago when I made my first Thanksgiving dinner, and invited my parents up to NC to join us. Dad was impressed. Then again, he'd been eating my mother's cooking all those years. I now understood why she never made us a birthday cake.