Even so, she spent almost every night of my childhood cooking up homemade meatloaf, slow cookers full of oxtail soup, chicken casseroles and other Midwestern specialties just like her own mother had done, just like she thought she had to.

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After dinner my grandmother lit a cigarette and my grandfather poured three glasses of homemade black currant vodka.

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And when the staff brought out big, thick, gooey, homemade cookies during a break, I was already so far outside my circle of guilt that I ate three of them.

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Recently two different friends gave me homemade jerky as gifts, and I just got a dehydrator to start making my own.

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My friend Vanessa and I ordered a regional white wine and enthusiastically awaited our antipasti: homemade pickled vegetables in olive oil which were perfectly balanced and not too acidic.

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Back when I was a kid, growing up on the mean streets of Mahopac, New York, we returned home from a day at school and did (always in this order) three things: First, we had a snack (long story, but my mother hid the treats in the trunk of our '80 Datsun 510, leaving my brother and me a choice of plain graham crackers, carrots or -- dear God -- homemade yogurt).

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Waiting for me in my cottage, a century-old homestead cabin beside a creek, was a plate of still-warm homemade cookies.

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