Tuna, Peas and Cheese

My recipe is pretty simple--tuna, peas and cheese. But the memories, stories and feelings it invokes are what make it priceless to my family and myself. My mom was the chef of the house for my family of five--mom and dad, two older sisters, and myself. She made countless delicious meals for us each night and always had breakfast prepared for my sisters and I before school. They weren't gourmet meals by any means, but they were comforting and delicious. Cooked with love. Mom was sick the entire eight years of my life that I knew her and two years beyond that as well. So most of her meals were pretty healthy and restricted ingredient wise. Nevertheless, I don't remember a single meal of hers I didn't like (and I was a very picky eater as a child). And then the disease took her and my family of five became four.

This post isn't about the complete agony and utter grief that came with losing my mom at such a young age. That's obvious, but sadness and loss is not the point here. It's about a recipe--tuna, peas and cheese. But more than that, about how such as simple, easy recipe became so significant to my family after she was gone. We girls were still too young to cook, so, as a single father now my dad took on the role. He was no chef by any means. But he tried. Threw stuff together--mostly frozen chicken nuggets, tater tots, corn dogs, etc. We went from absurdly healthy to...not so much. But one meal I will never forget that required a bit more work than throwing a bag of frozen edibles on a baking sheet and into the oven was the recipe my dad coined, "Tuna, Peas and Cheese." It consisted of a can of tuna, of-course, a bag of frozen peas and, lastly, a box of mac-n-cheese. A lot like a tuna casserole only more like the off-brand version of it. And it was hands down the favorite meal of us three girls. Cheesy goodness mixed with tuna (which is basically the chicken of fish) and peas to throw in the facade of still trying to be healthy.

We couldn't always eat together as a family--dad worked late and we three sisters had various sports or friend or school obligations to attend to. But we always ate together on tuna, peas and cheese night. Talked and laughed and began to heal from a loss that we would never forget or fully recover from. But nevertheless one we would move on from and, eventually, we would smile again and actually mean it. Food has a magical way of connecting people when you allow it to become something more than a means of survival. Tuna, peas and cheese is such a basic recipe on the surface, but like the melted cheese it warmed the hearts of my family and myself growing up. It reminded us that we were short one person now, but that even though we were now just "four peas in a pod" we were not alone and would always have each other. And it helped us realize that, just because without that fifth person it felt like the entire ocean was crashing down on us, each of us had to just"keep on swimming" and everything would be alright.

Nowadays, as three grown, young women and our dad remarried to our wonderful step-mother, we don't always get to eat together as much as we would like to. But on occasion, we do have that special family dinner together and sometimes that includes a tuna, peas and cheese night. Only...slighty different now. Because as we grow and change and transform so too does everything around us--including, in our case, special meals. The one absolute constant the recipe has maintained over the years is the mac-n-cheese--the base (though the cheese flavor has been mixed up on occasion). But each of us three girls have developed a bit of a culinary amateur talent, just like our mom. And so we've "spiced it up" a bit--adding various meats to it instead of tuna, such as chicken, brats, salmon, or anything else. The peas have acquired additional vegetables at times like frozen carrots or green beans, or been replaced entirely with corn, mushrooms or sweet potato chunks. We sometimes add different seasonings (beyond the original salt and pepper) like cilantro, basil, parsley, thyme and so on and so forth. We definitely couldn't serve it at a five-star restaurant and get away with it, but we take our tuna, peas and cheese and various variations of it highly seriously in my family.

Tuna, peas and cheese emerged out of a dark time in my life. A plain, easy-to-make recipe that my dad threw together one night and soon after it became a staple of my still recovering family of four. It brought us together on special nights, warmed our bellies and is a recipe that has remained with us for over fifteen years now. It has transformed and changed over those years for the better, just like my family and myself. But no matter how many ingreidents we add or take away or how many variations we create of it--my family and I will never forget the original tuna, peas and cheese, what it did for our family in a time of need and what it still means to us now. My mom might be gone, and with her absence a hole was left in all of our lives. It will never close completely, but, over the years it's become obvious to me that it is the little things that help it to heal the most. Little things as simple as eating a meal that consists of just three ingreidents--tuna, peas and cheese. A basic recipe that nevertheless reminds me every time I eat it, or even just think about it, to cherish my loved ones, remember I am never alone and to continue to have the courage to face the world no matter what it throws at me.