Valerie Bertinelli hosts "Valerie’s Home Cooking"

Happy Mother's Day! This year, May 9 is the day dedicated to motherhood and for showing appreciation to all the mothers and mother figures in our lives.

Over on Food Network, another Mother's Day tradition is underway: a weekend lineup dotted with special-themed episodes that will inspire you to cook for, and entertain, Mom. Those episodes will air throughout the day on Saturday (May 8) and on Sunday (May 9), too, which gives you the added option of watching them together.

Start your Sunday early with encore episodes of "Trisha's Southern Kitchen." Next up are two Mother's Day-themed episodes of "Valerie's Home Cooking," followed by four encore episodes of "The Pioneer Woman" that will carry you through brunch.

Then, on a new episode of "Valerie's Home Cooking," host Valerie Bertinelli enjoys a little quality time with her son and his girlfriend. She plans an outdoor movie night — an entertaining idea for Mother's Day during the pandemic (or really any time the weather allows it). The episode will guide you through the steps for preparing Movie Night-worthy snacks for everyone to enjoy, including an onion ring wedge salad with homemade ranch dressing, and a sweet-and-salty treat: movie theater bark.

On a new episode of "Girl Meets Farm," Molly Yeh throws a sprinkle-filled tea party in honor of Mother's Day. Yeh preps rose cupcake cones, savory hot dog flower buns, ham and cheese sandwiches on sour cream and chive scones, and some fairy toast with marzipan butter and homemade sprinkles.

It's followed by two more episodes of "Trisha's Southern Kitchen" before the theme continues later in the afternoon on "Guy's Grocery Games." In one of the episodes, the three contestants must compete in teams with their mothers. In another, three all-star judges (Beau MacMillan, Aarti Sequeira and Justin Warner) and their moms must shop and cook their way to a $20,000 victory for charity — Guy Fieri's own mother is on hand to give the judges a list of mandatory ingredients they must use to prep their Mother's Day dinner.

Moms shape our sense of taste from the beginning (our food preferences develop in the womb). The foods they choose for us, for them, can influence our lifelong eating habits; perhaps that's why food plays such a central role in many Mother's Day traditions. Cooking is a form of nurturing, and on this day it serves as an expression of gratitude to those who have nurtured, mentored and guided us (and our taste buds).