Food for Thought and Music Monday All Together Now!

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday as much as I did. You know how we continued the good feelings of our T-day meal? We ate some more. On Saturday night, the night before everyone flew back to their respective homes, we gathered for a Jamaican feast, cooked by my aunt's 'manpanion,' who hails from Kingston. He's almost 80 years old, but the man can throw down in the kitchen. We ate ackee and codfish, jerk neck bones, boiled bananas, fried plantains, callaloo, rice and avocados. For appetizer, there was roti stuffed with curry potatoes. Oh my god, I ate myself silly.

Folks don't believe me when I say I'm from Milwaukee and I have such a diverse family. They think Milwaukee is all White and devoid of color, but that's not exactly true. Milwaukee is incredibly segregated, but diversity there is. Before we sat down to enjoy this island feast, we blessed the food in all of the languages represented in my aunt's home that night. We heard blessings in Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Spanish, and Jamaican English (I made that up, but I'm not sure what the correct term for the distinct Jamaican language/dialect. Please don't crucify me. But feel free to enlighten me.). It made my kinky gazpacho heart sing.

And while I can't give you a taste of that delicious meal, I can leave you with a song to make your hearts sing. Enjoy!