Chex Mix

I made 3 batches of Chex Mix tonight for our Superbowl party tomorrow: original, spicy/sweet, and Puppy Chow (peanut butter and chocolate with powdered sugar). Actually, they're all half batches, but it's still a lot of Chex Mix; I don't even have a bowl big enough to create a full batch. I'm pretty proud of my Chex Mix making abilities; it's a hidden talent I didn't even know I had until this evening. To be honest, it's pretty hard to mess up Chex Mix, but it's the little details that count. For instance, instead of buying bagel chips, I created my own out of a stale bagel and some garlic salt; that's dedication to the craft. I bought Chocolate Chex for the Puppy Chow because it was on sale, though the recipe is already so chocolately that I don't think it really makes a difference. They key to a good Chex Mix is getting the proper ratio of wheat to corn to rice Chex: wheat Chex is a hearty cereal that is good for the savory mixes but too heavy for the sweet ones. Rice Chex is too light for the savory ones but good for holding chocolate and peanut butter. Corn Chex is a good utility player: crunchy and mild.

Making Chex Mix really took me back to my childhood; I have a vivid memory of my cousin Sig (who is more like my aunt since her oldest daughter is my age) making Puppy Chow in my Grandma's kitchen in rural Michigan. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. My cousin Carl, Sig's husband, was born when my aunt was 16, so Grandma played a significant role in raising him; they were very close. When he grew up and started a family, she let him and his wife put a trailer on her property (she had 80 acres) to raise their two daughters. Because the trailer was cramped, Sig and Carl and the girls spent a lot of time in my Grandma's house. Her house was also very small: just two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a basement, and an attic, but she and my Grandpa managed to raise 6 kids in it. Grandma was lonely by herself and enjoyed their company. Before Grandma died, she sold her home to Carl, and now he and Sig live in it and their daughter Shawna and her two kids live in the trailer. Shawna will probably live in the house some day.

Anyhow, I ate a lot of Chex Mix growing up and making it made me think about all the relatives that I haven't seen in years. For the most part I'm fine with not being close to my extended family; they're good people but we don't have a lot in common. A lot of them are on Facebook now, so now I can keep tabs, which is pretty cool; it's nice to be able to establish relationships with them on my own. Two of them have friended me in the past week so I've been reminiscing a lot.