written by Tina, Assistant Manager at The Good Cooking Store

Tina bakes bread as recreation because she’s good at it and because she loves to eat it. Her cake-baking and cake-decorating hobby has turned into baking wedding cakes for her many friends that astound them and their guests. Here we get a tiny view into her early love of food. –Phyllis Pellman Good

I grew up in northwest Ohio. Many of our family vacations included a trip 5 hours north to visit my mom’s parents in Michigan. One of my fondest memories of these childhood trips was not the drive itself, although I do believe that this is where I got my love of road trips, but rather what awaited us at Grandma’s house: Hamburger Vegetable Soup.

We would walk in the door of Grandma’s house to her warm welcome. Not that she was always physically present…often we had to hunt for her out in the garden or down the road at my uncle’s farm. But the smell of warm soup on the stove always greeted us, no matter where Grandma might be.

She had a knack for making this soup, probably because she made it so many times for so many traveling children and grandchildren as a homecoming soup. Her blend of vegetables varied depending on what was in her freezer or ripe in her garden, but the staples were always the same: hamburger, carrots, celery, peas, and often potatoes. And when we tasted it, we knew we were with Grandma.
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