Daily dilemma

Nothing let's you know how much your family values you like coming home to a sink full of dishes, a cluttered house, and piles of laundry - after driving to the Bronx.  Each day I have to remind myself that I am not Sandra and Sattiya (my friend's housemaids) but I am a God-fearing wife and mother, so I don't mind the domestic responsibilities associated with my gender role.  Besides, I am an dishwashing expert - my father would inspect the dishes and make me rewash the ones that did not meet his cleanliness criteria.

The other dilemma I have is, what's for dinner?  This has been an ongoing issue because of my obsession with food.  I realize most people are happy to rotate through the five things  they know how to cook (as someone commented at the potluck ) but that rotation gets old fast.  There's a entire culinary world out there just waiting to be discovered.

I could easily map out my plan by continent and go online and find recipes - that just seems so inauthentic - I like the personal touch; I meet someone and extract information; or I just get a taste for something.  I was trying a regional approach, however last night I was thinking I could go with a more dispersed approach by following colonies - this is my rationale for jumping from Eritrea to Italy...and my husband is taking that class so it's six degrees of separation.

The Italians never amassed colonial holdings comparable to other European crowns (yes I am aware the the Europeans were not the first to have empires or subjugate people; but their empires were global and resulted in a significant redistribution of people, cultures, and goods throughout the world), but Christopher Columbus was Genoese and the present-day City of Genoa is now part of Italy.  Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World opened up the Caribbean and the Americas to the Spanish crown.  This convoluted explanation is my attempt to connect my culinary voyage so far and justify my next stop - Mexico.  No, I am not buying a quesadilla machine.