Sunday Lunch

I love the custom in parts of Europe and Latin America (and probably elsewhere as well, although I haven't experienced it personally) of spending Sunday afternoons with friends, relaxing outside, eating, drinking, talking. This Sunday, my family and I went out to the beautiful, forested Virginia countryside to experience such a lunch in the new home of some dear friends. Those gathered included Americans, a lovely Thai woman, and an interesting man from Alsace. The food, as always, was excellent. My Thai friend excels in cooking everything from Thai food to Italian to, well, you name it and she can cook it.

She began cooking when she was a young girl growing up in the mountains of northern Thailand. Her parents had a small farm, and they needed someone to cook the daily meal provided to the laborers. Cooking the daily meal in Thailand is, of course, quite a different exercise than cooking here in the U.S. Every morning she would go to the market, buy what she needed, come home and start chopping and dicing and sauteing. In spite of what others would consider to be daily drudgery, she grew to love cooking because she had an instinctive talent for it and she loved making people happy. She still makes people happy with her cooking.

Recently, she underwent some hardships, with the loss of her 13-year-old boxer "baby", and then moving away from a large circle of close friends in another country. She was sad. Wanting to help her, I offered to show her how to make a necklace, and she agreed. Immediately, she took to it, went to a bead store and never looked back. I think it provides for her the same thing her cooking does: she has an instinctive talent for it, and she makes her friends happy with the lovely creations she gives to them.

The blue gill above was caught by my son in my Thai friend's pond.