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    A few years ago my Mama gave me a cast iron dutch oven for Christmas **Paula Dean** At the time I thought, "nice, a pot" but over the past few years I have come to realize the true value of my pot, which has warmed my heart for cooking and family tradition.

    I know it looks like a old dingy black pot but this is a lot more to me.  You see over the years I have learned to season my cast iron pot the way they did "in the old days".  Soap and water have never seen the inside of this pot.  It is tenderly loved and cared for until it is used again having a place of warm loving privileged inside my oven where it says warm/dry away from rust.  This pot is HEAVY but also one of the most serviceable pieces I have in my kitchen. 

    It has seen me though chicken and dumpling disasters,  homemade chili that would burn off the roof of your mouth, chicken noodle soup that warms your body from the chill of a cold winter day and my favorite "Mama's" spaghetti with a twist that makes me smile even on the worst of days.  I add any and all vegetables I can find to mama's old spaghetti recipe making it a mix between a vegetable stew and a sweet spaghetti sauce that my husband and I dearly love. 

My acknowledging that I love this meal is saying a lot for me because anyone who knows me knows I absolutely hate my own cooking. Not because I'm necessarily a bad cook but rather after cooking all day I don't enjoy eating what I have made.  I would much rather tantalize my taste-buds with others sweet southern fare than eat my own but on occasion there are a few meals that even if I do cook I still can enjoy like my vegetable spaghetti or my baked vegetable ziti both something you can't throw together in a matter of minutes.  Maybe it's the tender loving care that is required in cooking these meals or that spice and intricacies of the meal that make me appreciate them but whatever it is I LOVE to cook the sauce for both in my big ole' cast iron dutch oven. 

   The reason I love cooking in the pot isn't a simple reason but rather a culmination of "things".  My daughter knows when I pull the pot out that mommy is cooking and though she doesn't EAT what I cook she enjoys pitching in where she can and stirring the big ole pot **my husband constantly sneaks in to get in his stirs and taste testing as well**.  I cherish this time with them because this is what quality time is made up of seconds - minutes - hours of the day to day things called life.  These are the things my daughter will remember when she is my age and has a family of her own.  The neatest thing about this pot is that with each meal I cook because of the way it is cleaned/seasoned that meal carries forward to another and then another so that one day when I pass this pot on all of those family meals will be a part of what I am giving her.  My mama gave me this pot and I will one day give it to her this will be hopefully the start of a family tradition - this will be a part of my cooking/loving/family recipe given to Allie Beth passed on .... Today was a good day.  I got to cook with my family and share time with them.  I am reminded that time is one thing you can't get back because once it's gone, it's gone.  Thank you dear Lord for my big ole cast iron pot...