The potluck postulate

The most bizarre thing happened last night right before I went to sleep. I pulled my blankets over my head and it smelled exactly exactly like french toast with Aunt Jemima syrup and all! After six deep breaths the scent had vanished but I swear it was like walking into a pancake house. Perhaps now that I've declared my food cravings they will appear and haunt me.

Anyway thinking about cravings made me realize how much I miss potlucks. I'm not sure if they're popular in all states but I'd say at least once a month in my conscious upbringing there was some sort of potluck, at school, after/during sport games, after shows, for birthdays/graduations/holidays, it was the understood way of sharing meal with a large group of people. No questions asked. One of the best parts is that there's always an excess of baked goods so multiple stops at that end of the table were necessary so as, um, not to waste. And there's such a mix of cultures in Hawaii which creates a huge variety of food and infusions between the cultures create many more options. Hawaii is practically a separate culture since the food, landscape, and climate are beautifully unconventional. Back to potlucks: it's not the food at potlucks that I miss, it's the operation itself; people lining up, assessing your options, small talking your way through, choosing what to take, picking the better looking spam musubis (there's always more than one tray), figuring out how to balance the plate while piling on more food, chowing down while using your lap or the ground as a table and still trying to have some etiquette, and then making sure the wind doesn't blow anything away. I especially miss when these are on the beach and some tent is set up and you just enjoy the calm atmosphere. Honestly I don't miss the beach too much but I miss its peacefulness.

My parents always liked to eat meals on the lanai (hawaiian word for patio) whenever we could and I never understood why. Well after not eating outside since October, I do understand and I miss it dearly! Since it's always warm in Hawaii it's very common to have a lanai and oh how I miss our lanai! It's just so nice to be outside and feel at ease.

This is quite a scrambled post but I just passed the half-way mark in my program and naturally things that I've missed have been on my mind!