Entry 1

2/19/22

When you're a child sitting around a table of dishes it almost seems like a chore. Bowls of salad, plates of vegetables and of course the main course. You sit there as a family laboriously pushing through the salad and veggies to get to that beautiful casserole dish filled with crispy leopard spotted flautas. No matter how long those beautiful tortilla tubes have been out of the oven the tender shredded chicken would always turn into molten lava the minute it hits the roof of your mouth. The child's mind never quite understands the science of taste and chooses the chaos method of fighting fire with fire, shoving bite after bite of magma into your gullet to extinguish the blaze.

As you get older you start appreciating those vegetables more and those family meals become less frequent. At least they did for me.

In teenage years family meals are replaced with 10 teens clown car-ing into your friend’s mom’s 1990 Mazda MPV to the local diner just to cram together again into that large corner booth. You know that local greasy spoon with the confused menu consisting of all day breakfast, big plate Mexican food, gyros and the California classic avocado bacon cheeseburger served with thick cut fries that are perfectly crispy on the outside and pillow-like on the inside. Oh and don’t forget that dusting of Lawry’s seasoned salt.

Your order gets called and that giant table is filled with burgers, fries, pancakes, burritos and baskets of complimentary tortilla chips.

“Who the hell ordered a tuna melt?!”

The quick draw of those teenage hands launch to desecrate those sacred red baskets brimming with fries.

When you think back on those two different tables it dawns on you that food is a vessel of community, food is a vessel of love.

The setting, the food, and the people always change but the love is always there.