Mary, I miss our long phone calls and just hearing your voice. I know you are at peace and with Al and all your loved ones. I treasure my memories of my sweet and special sister who I always looked up to. Thanks for all the advice and memories. Love, Rosa

When we were children back in the 1950s, there was no such thing as fast food, or if there was, we never knew about it, because meals were something Mother fixed. Three meals a day, 365 days a year. She made our lunches for school. She packed Father's lunches for work. She fried the chicken and packed the picnic basket for outings. Even on road trips, our "vacations", Mother prepped and packed the food and stocked the cooler so that we did not need to stop at a restaurant. I am not sure I ever ate at a restaurant until I was maybe 10 years old. 

Father got bacon and eggs every morning of his life (until the heart attack),and Mother saved the grease for deep-frying the french fries. Of course, it was the '50s, so we ate sugary cereal for breakfast and white-bread sandwiches for lunch. When the family grew to 7 people, mother stretched the food by making casseroles, branching out from the meat and potatoes that Father insisted on. She took a flat amount of cash to the grocery store and never spent a penny beyond what was planned. 

Interestingly, after her childhood of privation, and an early married life of scrimping and saving, Mother's freezer in her latter days was stuffed to the last cubic centimeter with all sorts of goodies--frozen meals, pastries, ice cream, snacks. But she still ate every meal at home.