Remembering Childhood...

So this post has nothing to do with my adventures in China, however it does have to do with being away from the USA and having some special memories come up.  If you didn't watch me grow up, or you did not grow up in the 80's and 90's as I did you might not relate to this post but i am doing it anyway, because its fun!  I was born February 24, 1984 on a cold winters day in Detroit, Michigan .... in 1987 we moved from Detroit to Phoenix, Arizona I am not sure if any of these memories are regional but i think i had a goood mix of both, I call bubbily beverages both soda and pop depending on the day.  I like Faygo's Rockin Rye and RC Cherry Coke, I will enjoy a hot dog at Coney Island or eat a burrito...but hey that's just me!  And if no one else can relate, my little brother (exactly 11 months, 2 weeks and 6 days younger) Jayme will relate, hey we grew up in the same house!

While in China I have been cooking A LOT, we are talking every meal and desserts!  I decided i wanted teriyaki chicken, at home i would eat this probably once a week BUT someone else would make it for me :)  I would run by on my way home the local teriyaki chicken shop and pick up some for dinner while grabbing Brian Chipotle from next door.  So in the search for teriyaki chicken (Japanese dish by the way) I remembered all the dinners of grilled chicken, rice and homemade teriyaki chicken my dad would make for us.  We LOVED the teriyaki sauce he made and ate it quite often for dinner, it was healthy, right?  Well I asked dad for the recipe and while the chicken and rice were "healthy" the sauce is not, but so good!  I remember the sweet smell in the house when he was making a batch, the specific jar he used to put it in, i think it was maybe an old pickle jar, but it worked!  So where do you find sweet cooking rice wine in China?  NOWHERE!  I imported.....lol  Dad and Shelli sent me a nice little care package of some items i shipped to their house and inside added two bottles of this needed ingredient along with the celery seed i was longing for when i tried to make my grandpa's homemade pickle recipe.  So last night i decided to brew up a batch of this delicious sauce in preparation for dinner tonight, i got all the ingredients (honey, brown sugar, white sugar, soy sauce and sweet cooking rice wine) and cooked it up, of course instantly the smell reminded me of being a kid and the delicious smell of knowing what we were going to have for dinner whenever dad made a fresh batch of this!  I let it cook and cool a little only to dip a large spoon it in and proceed to lick all the sauce of......YUM this is exactly what i wanted!!!!  I can't wait for dinner tonight.....now if we only had a grill to make the chicken on.  (Dad was also the king of making rice crispy treats, both regular, chocolate and mixed, I made these last week!)

Here is a photo, but it won't justify the glorious taste of this delicious sauce!

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So the next thing that came up this week reminding me of childhood was a posting of Facebook of the 25 year reunion of Hey Dude! cast members!  Call me silly but I love this show, along with some of the others in the TGIF and Nickelodeon lineup of the 80's and 90's.  I remember having our friends Jackie and Jacob over and Jayme and I would all watch the shows together!  Friday night was often pizza night for our family and it was great!  So after seeing the post, I went to amazon and watched a few of the old episodes, when Brian got home i had to show him too!  Ah the memories of being a kid!  So here are a few other things i recall from my childhood, I always love those "Were you a kid of the 90's" quizzes so here are some of those kind of things!  Enjoy!

Scrunchies, side ties for your shirt, Ying Yang jewlery, Trapper Keppers, JanSport backpacks, VHS, casset tapes, neon shoe laces and silly string (my dad brought a bunch to the father daughter camp out for brownies!), Sun In for your hair, Miss Mary Mack, The Olsen Twins, Back Street Boys, Playing The Oregon Train in elementary school (the only acceptable use for a floppy disk), slammers and pogs, the sound of AOL dial up, and my dad's first car phone (it was actually stuck in the car) . I recall climbing the rope in gym at Madison Simis to the tune of "don't break my heart, my achy breaky heart", selling enough wrapping paper to get the clear phone!  Playing Dream House, Lite Bright, Mall Madness, Cats Cradle and Girl Talk.  My first game boy, playing my brother's Nintendo, Mario Bros! I remember getting milk in a bag with a straw to punch in at school, tongue splashers, watermelon bubble yum!, bubble tape (i love gum), Crystal Pepsi(wont stain the carpet), Rice Crispy Treat Cereal, Dunkaroos (we ate these in every lunch we packed), PopQwiz (Colored microwavable popcorn), troll dolls, kidz cuisine, squueze its!, pudding pops, scented markers, Gushers, Astro pops, WOW chips, Flintstone push pops, Sunny D (had to have one of these on the way home from school) , beanie weinnies, ring pops, fun dip, cheese balls, Dairy Queen Blizzards and the DQ Rock.... and Kool-Aid!

            

Favorite TV Shows: Sesame Street (who is Barney), Carebears, Smurfs, Fraggles, Popples (come on you remember these guys), Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Gummie Bears, Double Dare, Hey Dude!, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Full House, Family Matters, Saved by the Bell, Salute Your Shorts, The Wonder Years, Doogie Houser M.D., Boy Meets World(spin off starting soon "Girl Meets World"), Step-by-Step, Hangin with Mr. Cooper, Dinosaurs, Seinfeld, Home Improvement Anne of Avonley, Rugrats, Rockos Modern Life, All That, Clarissa Explains It All, Doug, Dawnson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ghost Writer, Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego?  So maybe I watched too much tv :)

Have to mention favorite movies: The Little Mermaid, The Sandlot, Home Alone, Hocus Pocus, The Indian Jones movies you bought from McDonalds, Clueless, Beauty and the Beast ( I was Belle for Halloween in 1st grade), and Grease!

Rambling I know but i bet if you read this to the end you remember it all too!