As I write this I’m acutely aware of two items on the media (TV, Radio, Livestream, your choice) today: The Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings, and President Obama’s speech at 9pm Eastern. In full disclosure, I prepared this diary prior to 9pm so I could focus on the Farewell Address. As January 20th approaches I find I am utterly not ready mentally to deal with the reality of what faces us, so rather than speak to either the clusterfuck of confirmaton hearings or what will be an emotional final address to the country as President, I’m reverting to one of my favorite topics (for those keeping track, they’re food, my kids, and music). Please grab whatever beverage sustains you tonight and join us below, after a word from our sponsor.
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As many of you may remember, K1 is home on college winter break until I drive her back next Monday. We’ve prepared a lot of her favorite foods (apparently we totally failed as parents by cooking tasty, varied food as she’s utterly demoralized by the repetitiveness, inconsistent quality and lack of flavor inherent in dining hall food) and hit up the local places she wanted to eat at.
Tonight, however, is K2’s special choice- dinner at our local Ethiopian restaurant, known in our house as “going for injera”. It’s a celebration tonight because his science teacher emailed to say he scored a perfect 100 on their latest test, but we had this meal planned already- he’s been waiting since mid-December, until his sister was home (and we didn’t have holidays, other events, etc).
Why did he want to wait til his sister was home? “Because injera is special, a family thing, and I want us all to be together.” Yes, for us Ethiopian food evokes the sense of family. From our trip to restaurants while we went through the adoption process, to our first meal as a family at an Addis Ababa orphanage when K2 proudly fed us bits of injera and wot (stew). Another in-country meal; a celebration at a fancy restaurant with nine other adoptive families after we received the visas that allowed us to bring our children home to the United States. And then the first (of many) meals here, one week after he arrived home- he was simultaneously excited to be in a place where everyone understood him, and petrified we were going to leave him there (our eternal thanks to the people who made sure he understood he was HOME, forever, with us and was just there for dinner!).
We have other “Special Food” too. Birthdays require the celebrant gets to choose what we have for dinner, and get a homemade birthday cake of their choice. When K1 celebrates something special we often go to a restaurant specializing in fondue- Casa Brillig prepares a cheese fondue every Christmas Eve, but the experience of going out for a multicourse cheese, meat and chocolate fondue is something we only do occasionally, and for good cause.
What sorts of special traditions do you have around food, if any? Is there a dish you only prepare for special events, or a restaurant/cuisine that holds special meaning? Please share with us in the comments, after perusing what you really come to this community diary series for… the trio of Top Comments, Mojo and Pictures served up tonight be the always-someone-special BeninSC!
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From Puddytat:
I found this comment from Patriot4peace late, but it's worthy of plenty of more eyeballs because it says it all in this era of Trumpiness.
On a "Yikes! Could Muslim hating, racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, extremist Jeffie Sessions really become Attorney General?" Day, we're gonna need some humor!
Lorinda Pike starts it off with this comment, and then nonnie9999 hits it out of the park!
From elfling:
This comment, by H8MeThen, is all about the reality community and facts! In Joan McCarter’s fine diary about difficulties facing those who would kill Obamacare.
Highlighted by TomP and Tzimisce (NESTED highlights!):
Is this comment by zerelda in one of the Final Speech liveblog diaries about President Obama’s great decency and the coming contrast, and this comment by TomP, about the same man, and about the same contrast.
Top Mojo ala mik!
For Monday, January 9, 2017, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on the subject.
2017-01-10, courtesy of jotter!