Aromatic memory triggers

You may have heard that smell can be one of the most powerful memory triggers; the moment a scent hits your nose and registers in your brain, you can be taken back to another time, for good or bad. That's certainly true for me. I love scents: perfume, men's cologne, candles, even laundry detergent and fabric softener. I seem to respond to them on an elemental level, as though I wouldn't be who I am without them. The aromas I'm most fond of are definitely those of meals I grew up enjoying with my family and still enjoy today. My mood can be lifted instantly at the smell of my favorite foods. I'm 40 years old, perfectly capable of caring for myself and making my way in the world, but when I smell my family's best dishes, I somehow feel safer and even more loved.

My family is of German ancestry on both sides. In the early days as Americans they may have eaten traditional German food, which I don't like at all, but I don't know. My idea of traditional is the Sunday dinners we had in my childhood and that my parents still endeavor to make: Pot roast, pork roast or chicken with potatoes and gravy, a  hot vegetable or two and a side salad, usually my mom's cucumber salad, because I love it so much. Her spaghetti sauce is also at the top of my list. I made it recently and I came darn close to her recipe, but it needs tweaking.

My dad always says he was destined to marry my mom because the women in her family cook just like his mom did. They've been married almost forty-nine years; aside from meals, they must be doing something right.

The other scent that I love to this day is a fresh, outdoor, pine/evergreen fragrance that fills the summer air on the Wisconsin lakes where we vacationed when I was kid. I love it so much that I walked into a perfumery one day asking for it, as I was sure I'd caught a whiff of the woodsy essence. I never did find it, but I still hope to find something close to it one day.