All of my friends know that I’m a foodie! I love to cook, I love to eat, and I love to share.  On Christmas Eve, except for very recently, I always did the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes. Even people who did not eat fish, ate it all! And, it has always been a great joy of mine to watch them  After all, I am my mother’s daughter.  Even though I cannot do the feast, anymore, Christmas Eve is still a great time of celebration at our house.  There is still lots of food, great bread (thank you to my friend, Kay, the honorary “Bread Lady”), and very excellent wine…oh, and desserts.  You have not eaten cake until you’ve eaten my friends’ Tee and Antje cakes.  This year, I even ordered cookies from Sicily!  They were magnificent.  But this blog is not about the wonderful Christmas Eve feasts at the Miller house.  It is about why I am such a lover of food.

Last night, my dear friend, Tee, gifted upon us her grandmother’s buttermilk biscuits and gravy.  GIFTED. Now, I’m Italian, (yes, I know, I’ve said that before,) so gravy, to me is rich, tomato-y sauce for pasta.  To Tee, it’s down home, country creamy, buttery rich gravy that you slather on your pork chops and lick off your fingers.  And, you don’t eat gravy without biscuits…although, I could eat it from a spoon! So, last night, we combined forces and had a wonderful, down home, Southern meal.  Reason number 1 for being a foodie.  We love good food.

But more than that, Tee’s sharing of her grandmother’s biscuits is her sharing a piece of HER life that is so very different from mine, and yet I experienced a real piece of it.  Through food, you get to share someone else’s life experience.  Reason number 2 for being a foodie.

Another friend of mine, Antje, shares Christmas Eve with us.  She is German and we have learned more about her life over a glass (or several) of wine, then we could any other way.  We also learn about her life every Christmas.  She has an italian Christmas Eve and we have an honest to goodness German Christmas! Her tortes are incredibly delicious and have no calories…yeah, right.  They are elaborate and yummy and filled with her heritage and her love.  What could be a better way to learn about someone else’s culture. Reason number 3 for being a foodie.

In this ever shrinking world, we must learn about people.  We must be able to accept and embrace differences.  I am blessed to be able to fill my table with an array of different people, people I love and have learned from…this is the international house of pancakes! If you can share food with others, you share the world.  Reason 3 for being a foodie!