Autism Awareness Blog Hop and Giveaway

Autism Fact: About 1% of the world population has autism.

I’m delighted to be taking part in RJ Scott’s Autism Awareness blog hop once more, and this year’s theme is food.

I was brought up eating strictly seasonal vegetables. My father’s always been a keen grower of fruit and veg—he grew up during the Second World War with its Dig For Victory campaign, which may have something to do with it! Consequently, when I was a child, when it was broad bean season, we ate broad beans fresh from their blankety beds. When the peas were ready, podding them for dinner was a regular afternoon chore for me and my brother. Other crops included runner beans, lettuces, corn on the cob, fresh mint, and when the greenhouse was built, tomatoes, peppers and courgettes.

We had an apple tree (great for climbing!) that supplied the filling for pies and crumbles, and underneath it, gooseberry bushes, which is where I was told babies came from! Blackcurrants for homemade Ribena, and raspberries and loganberries (when did you last see a loganberry in a shop?)

And strawberries! My birthday is in early June, and I always hoped there’d be a strawberry or two ready to eat for it. Once the season was in full swing, we occasionally ate strawberries for three meals a day. Thought you couldn’t ever get (temporarily) sick of strawberries? You probably didn’t open your packed lunch at school to find strawberry sandwiches!  

These days, few of us are limited to fruit and vegetables that are in season locally. In normal times at least, we can buy anything we want all year round. It makes for a more varied diet on a daily basis—but wouldn’t it be nice if supermarkets could have a seasonal produce section to encourage us to eat locally-grown food, and stop all those food miles adding up?

GIVEAWAY: I’m offering an ebook of winner’s choice from my backlist to a randomly chosen commenter on this post. I’d love to hear about your own food-related childhood memories!

I’ll make the draw after the end of the tour, on May 8th, which is my dad’s birthday, as well as VE Day. Good luck!

http://rjscott.co.uk/autism-awareness-blog-hop-links-posts

Don’t forget to check out all the other posts on the blog hop for more autism facts, food-related posts, and giveaways – you can find the master list here: http://rjscott.co.uk/autism-awareness-blog-hop-links-posts

Image used is by Congerdesign from Pixabay

About jlmerrow

JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne. She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and the paranormal, and is frequently accused of humour. Find JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com
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10 Responses to Autism Awareness Blog Hop and Giveaway

  1. Jennifer Shannon says:

    We had a nice garden when I was a kid. We grew peas, corn, beans, carrots, strawberries, potatoes, zucchini (yuck!), pumpkins, grapes, rhubarb, tomatoes and occasionally other things. Now we can only grow tomatoes, peas, beans and strawberries.

  2. bn100 says:

    baking cookies with mom

  3. Aethena Drake says:

    I grew up in a city on the edge of farm country. My grandmother had a small farm that she allowed one of her neighbors to plant corn on. in exchange she was able to pick any fresh corn on her property. When my siblings and I went to visit, we would pick and shuck corn to have for dinner

    • jlmerrow says:

      Nice – fresh veg with none of the work! ;D
      We had a similar arrangement with a neighbour when I lived in flats in London – he planted veg in our postage stamp size garden, and would occasionally bring us up a handful. Usually for us to puzzle over, as he didn’t know the English names and planted stuff I hadn’t seen in the wild before! 😉

  4. One of my favorite memories is popping popcorn on the stove with my grandmother. She always used white popcorn and popped it bacon grease. The taste was wonderful – no butter needed! 🙂

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