My father recently gave me a calendar book (you know the type – where there’s a calendar for each month of the year on a 2-page spread, so that you can write individual appointments and whatnot on the actual day, with a full month view, and a quote in the corner of each page). Most of the quotes were the usual fare – inspirational quotes, mainly those of the “no one can put you down without your consent” type. I wasn’t impressed. Then I came upon a quote that made me stop and think:
“All great change begins at the dinner table.”
And you know what? That’s exactly right. To me, the most important part of diplomacy is the food – a well-fed diplomat is a contented diplomat, and a contented diplomat is more likely to produce a lasting peace. Of course, that’s a relatively simple argument, and I’m sure there are assumptions that I’ve made that people can call me out on. However, before you do that, I’d point out to you that there are normal-people situations where this applies, too. (Not that diplomats are not normal people, it’s just that they are an exceptional case and therefore do not apply to the everyday situations that you and I might find ourselves in.)
Consider the following: when I’m hungry, I’m more prone to anger and mood swings. I don’t think completely clearly, and am more likely to make rash decisions. To put it somewhat metaphorically, when I’m hungry, I shoot from the hip, and I’m not Wyatt Earp or Billy The Kid or Sheriff Bart or anyone like that. Therefore, when I shoot from the hip, things get messed up. What’s more, I know that I’m not the only person this happens to. While we may try to control it to the best of our ability, we cannot rid ourselves completely of this trait.
This shoot-from-the-hip way of doing things can have one of two consequences:
- Nothing gets done. Things stay the same as they are, and as such no change is made.
- There is anywhere from a low to a high level of regression. Instead of changing for the better, we move backwards and things ultimately get worse than they are now, and perhaps worse than they’ve ever been.
I will not make a political commentary here, except to say that perhaps it should be a requirement that members of Congress ought to make sure they are well-fed before beginning a session, and that they be allowed, during longer sessions, to eat. Anyway, that brings me to the point of the quote. Great change can only be made with a net absence of either of the two negative possibilities I mentioned a second ago, when people are content, and can look to the future with honesty and the best interests of the people in their hearts.
Another way of interpreting the quote is quite a bit more literal. That is, all changes in America are made at the dinner table when American families sit down to dinner. While there, family members can talk about their day, can talk about what’s going on in their country, what’s going on in the world, etc. Through discussions at those tables, parents can pass their values on to their children, and family values are preserved. But doesn’t that fit the first negative action that I talked about earlier? Not exactly. Here we have the preservation of values, but that does not mean that no change can occur. Indeed, the preservation or reaffirmation of certain family values can change a person’s way of looking at things, and thus how they react to them, and isn’t that change?
Furthermore, family values can change at the dinner table, through discussion and interaction with family members who have, in one way or another, interacted and been affected by the outside world. For those who are at home during the day, interactions with TV, the radio, or the internet can being about new ways of thinking. Adults interact with other adults at work, and children interact with other children at school (this last part is especially important, as schools serve to give children the basics for interaction with others, and some sort of uniformity comes out of that. The individual values that kids bring from home can also affect other children in school, and perhaps even eventually change the way schools format social interactions.). What’s more, these changing values at the dinner table eventually must trickle up to our representatives in Washington, thereby bringing change to Washington, too.
At this point, you must be wondering who gave us that wonderful quote. Allow me to re-present it to you here, along with its author.
“All great change begins at the dinner table.” – Ronald Reagan.
That’s right – Ronald Reagan was the great mind behind that quote. I don’t think that’s particularly important, but there is an interesting tidbit about him and food. Well, a snack food – Jelly Beans. Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans, and always had a bowl of them in his office. Upon first meeting a person, he’d invite them to take jelly beans. Based on how they reacted, and how they took their sweets from his bowl, he would be able to tell something about them. For example, a person who took a handful jelly beans indiscriminately was unorganized. That’s only one example, and that’s the only one I’m going to provide here, but I still find the story as a whole very humorous, and to be honest, it makes me love him even more.
That being said, I’d like to turn for a minute to the title of this post. We’ve already gone over the diplomacy part, so now let’s talk about comfort foods. Different people have different comfort foods, but why are they comfort foods? There can be any number of reasons, but the top two would seem to be either a simple love for the food or a positive memory of an event or experience or feeling that is triggered by that food. One of my biggest comfort foods (I’m about to give a secret part of me out to the world here) is pasta, usually a shell or curly shape, with eggs, cheese, and a bit of black pepper. It’s a relatively simple dish that I have as of yet not learned how to make. It’s a dish from my childhood. Now that I think of it, most of my comfort foods involve some type of pasta. I should probably learn how to make them all so that I can cheer myself up when I’m sad. Comfort Food + a few good Simpsons episodes = cheering me up.
Another comfort food (and one that I know I share with others) is ice cream. Earlier this week, I had some with my father and my sister. Friendly’s coffee-flavored. It was particularly delicious. Pure and simple, but it was something that we all enjoyed together, and somehow that made it all the more pleasant. Forgetting the fact that all three of us have pleasant memories of summers past associated with ice cream (whether they were made together or not), sharing the experience that night was something that I’ll remember for quite some time. The picture below explains most of this reason:
The Joe Jonas cup is my sister's, and the little espresso cup is my father's. Can you guess which one is mine? (Yes, it's a Macaulay mug.)
My sister and I both had large mugs, with three scoops of ice cream each. My father wanted a small mug, and I jokingly pulled out the espresso cup to put his delicious frozen treat in. He liked the idea though, and kept it. I found it particularly hilarious, especially when the mugs were positioned for the picture above – two huge mugs in front of a tiny little one. The great difference in size, I think, made it funny to me.
As a perusal of my older posts will tell you, however, I’ve recently gone on a health kick. So what’s an alternative to ice cream? Frozen yogurt! While the original flavor is tart, there are several flavors that taste quite delicious. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. A self-serve frozen yogurt shop recently opened up five or six minutes’ walking-distance from my front door. The timing seems questionable to me, as they opened up during the coldest month of the year. But whatever. It’s this amazing little place called “Orange Tree Yogurt.”
Orange Leaf Yogurt Business Card
You walk to the back of the store, get a paper cup, and fill it with any of the several flavors they have (or perhaps one of the perfectly paired combinations they have available), and then, even better, you can add almost any topping you can think of. While it may be the sugar count for the week, it most certainly is worth it. It’s bliss, man!
And now that my mouth is watering, I will bid you all adieu.
