Sunday, October 3

Good Southern Cooking

I ate dinner at Monell's last night down in Germantown. This is the type of restaurant where there are 12 chairs around a large dining table and all the food is shared family style. "Passing to the left" is the rule and there is more than enough food in every dish that is passed.

If your party is small enough, you will end up sitting with other families. It is definitely the teacher in me, but I looked around and thought about how proud Dr. Martin Luther King would have been. This is a place where all different worlds are placed in a setting of fellowship and passing the bread. After a few minutes of acclimating to the table, stories and smiles begin passing between strangers. Seeing the light come to people's eyes as they connect for the first time is one of my favorite things in life.

There is no need to choose from a menu, the choices for dinner are already set each night. Last night it was pulled pork, meatloaf, fried chicken, green beans, turnip greens, cornbread, biscuits and gravy, peach preserves, baked apples, corn pudding, potatoes, fried pickles, banana pudding, sweet tea. It was kind of like Thanksgiving in October. Yum. :)

I sat at the table and felt thankful. Thankful to have been invited to spend time with my roommate's newly growing family. Thankful to be able to play with cutest little 2 year old and his 7 month old brother. Thankful to be eating a good meal. I have never really gone to food for comfort. If anything, I am the opposite. I eat a lot of cereal and frozen meals when left on my own. But last night it was a comfort....to be eating home style, southern food, to be surrounded with old and new friends, to be out on the town and part of a community.

For a few moments, I couldn't help but look back and remember about 2 years ago at this time when I sat with a family I called my own, in a restaurant much like this. It was a day I'll never forget. I was in love and part of a family who that very morning had turned to the Lord. My heart overflowed and it hasn't stopped since.

We cannot see the future of our lives, but we can be thankful the moments we are given. I am thankful to have been a part of those moments in the past. I am thankful for new moments like last night. Life goes on. All things are new. Life will come back one meal at a time, one family at a time, one day at a time.

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