Rachel Khoo Quotes

When I was younger we had a grape arbor, and my mom would go out and pick grapes and make grape jam in the sink - boil it, put it in jars, and give it away as gifts.

When I think of summertime as a kid, I think of my Grampy's gardens full of tomatoes, buckets heaping with blackberries, and countertops lined with an assortment of Ball jars, ready to can the flavor of summer.

Our parents were very prim and proper, but we always got one toy every day. That was a ritual. The money didn't really matter.

Dad played with me a great deal, as dads should do, and our chief sport was baseball. He bought me a hardball when I was three years old, and he used to sit in a rocker on the front porch while I sat on the grass in the yard, and we'd play catch by the hour.

When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.

I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas - but I did too!

I've taken my boys to the house I grew up in. Taken them to the site of Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers used to play. They go to all the Dodger games, and they play Little League ball. I have infused them with New York spirit.

I've been hearing fiddle music since I was in the womb, I'm sure.

Thanksgiving, our eminent moral holiday, doesn't have much for children. At its heart are conversation, food, drink, and fellowship - all perks of adulthood.

I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.

It's so important to engage your kids to create rituals and moments that they will always remember.

You have to remind kids to stay connected to the meaning of Christmas. Sometimes it takes a little bit of effort, but it's so worth it.

My father had the bug. Ever since I can remember walking, he was waking me up at 5 in the morning to go to flea markets. As a kid, I couldn't really stand it, but as I grew up, I became that guy, and when I have kids, I am going to be doing the same thing.

I still miss my gramma. I can see her at the farm, in her apron, babushka and support stockings. My Slovak gramma spoiled us with pig in the blankets, kalachi, pop, chips and a drawer full of lollipops. It was heaven.

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.

One thing I always make - and I'm sure this is partly to do with memory and yearning and because I've made it ever since my children were born - I make gingerbread every year. And it's partly just the perfume of the spices in the house, makes it smell like winter to me.

Me and my dad, we'd go to the dirt bike races every year. I mean we'd go probably too much every year. And he would make me listen to all country music.

When I was little, and whenever I had to wear a dress while my mother took up the hem or made any alterations, she told me to keep a thread from the dress in my mouth while she was sewing, and that would keep me from getting stuck by the needle.

When I was a kid, we'd go crabbing, as a lot of folks do on the East Coast, and we'd catch some fresh crabs and take it home, and Mom would turn it into this unbelievable crab gravy - or, as they say, sauce.

My dad grew up with an avocado tree in his backyard. My entire family, my wife and daughters, they love avocado. I may well be allergic. It makes me physically sick.

As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother's joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom.

Waffle House is my childhood thing. We used to go there on Sundays or weekends every now and then with my family. It's just good, Southern, home-cooked food, and that's what I love.

My father didn't watch football, and it was my grandad who got me in to it.

We always go to downtown Oklahoma City to look at all the Christmas lights that have been put up... We go to the Christmas Eve service at church, and we always beg my parents to open a present - just one present - on Christmas Eve. We get them to cave.

I have very vivid memories of my mom and dad making up batches of fake blood at night.