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Happy Mother's Day: Post 2

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One of my favorite shows is Brooklyn Nine-Nine, an office sitcom about a police precinct. It's hilarious. The head of the precinct, Captain Holt, is super stoic, rarely cracks or understands jokes, and doesn't like to have a lot of fun. One of the best examples of this occurs when one of the detectives, Santiago, is trying to connect with Captain Holt on a stakeout and says they should grab some food while they are together. Captain Holt responds: "No need, I brought these." He pulls out what looks like a granola bar and explains: "Nutrition bricks. I have original, no flavor, and whole wheat, no flavor."

He is 100% serious about those nutrition bricks.
 I think that if my mom or I were Santiago, we would not be able to contain our horror in this moment. We LOVE food. While this can result in some overeating problems (I cannot stop eating Oreos, for example), it also means that my mom and I appreciate any and all delicious restaurants that we encounter, and that I have come to love trying new places with tasty dishes. This has made Rebecca's and my time in Ann Arbor particularly fruitful, since there are so many new restaurants to try and so many unique flavors around the city, and I attribute my joy of eating delicious food to my mom.

This also means that whenever we go on vacations with my mom, we are bound to try some new restaurants that have some incredibly delicious flavors. I have two relatively recent memories of food with my mom on vacation. The first was in April of 2013. My parents and I went on vacation in the Cayman Islands (for scuba diving, of course!), and I had recently gotten on a kick about lion fish. Lion fish are an invasive species in the Caribbean and they basically have no natural predators there, which means that the lion fish populations are exploding. This is a problem because lion fish have VORACIOUS appetites and are decimating other fish populations. The only thing that seems to effectively get rid of lion fish? Humans. We are really good at killing stuff, so the Cayman Islands have tried to encourage scuba divers to kill lion fish whenever they can. Turns out, they will go on lion fish hunts, and divers can sell the lion fish to restaurants for credit to the restaurant or cash. I was DEAD SET on trying some lion fish during this trip, and after asking around, we found a restaurant called Ristorante Pappagallo that served lion fish. While I didn't love the lion fish (it was in a weird ceviche and tasted mostly like lime), the restaurant was beautiful, and it was so fun to sit there with my parents and enjoy some seafood in the Cayman Islands. That was an awesome trip, in no small part because of all the delicious food.

Ristorante Pappagallo

The other memory was on our trip to Germany two years ago. Rebecca and I went with my parents to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, basically a medieval town that has been preserved over the last four hundred years. I remember walking through the Old City and finding this restaurant with a courtyard surrounded by ivy-covered walls and a small dining area outside. It was just warm enough that we could sit out there and eat our Schnitzel. For me, it's always Jägerschnitzel, or fried pork smothered in a dark gravy sauce and mushrooms, with crispy French fries on the side. It was DELICIOUS. But more importantly, I remember sitting there and laughing with my mom while we reveled in the tastiness of the food together.

Thanks for the shared gastronomical passion, mama, and here's to all the good food we will continue to share together!


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