Breakfast Pasta with Eggs, Bacon and Sautéed Onions
I needed comfort food this weekend – you know, starchy, fatty, salty, chocked full of umami cheesy goodness comfort food.
Eight years ago on this weekend, I planned an inaugural party for friends where we feasted on appetizers from Hawaii – Char Siu Baby Back Ribs, and Indonesia – Satays with Peanut Sauce. Then we moved on to Beef Rendang, the classic Indonesian stew with coconut milk, and Nasi Goreng, Indonesian fried rice, all to honor our new President’s childhood. I served Palaver Sauce, a dish of African stewed greens to honor his ancestry, and then Chiles Relleños, as he reportedly loved Rick Bayliss’s Mexican food in his adopted home city of Chicago. We finished with fudgy chocolate Brownies, that quintessentially American dessert, as all of us gathered were, and as was our President, quintessentially American.
Continuous loop recordings of Senator and candidate Barack Obama’s speeches played on a couple of laptops displayed around the room. We had all delighted in watching the throngs at the Concert for America earlier – the celebration where generations and races came together, where Pete Seeger met Bruce Springsteen met Beyoncé met James Taylor met Herbie Hancock met Bon Jovi met Garth Brooks met U2 met Stevie Wonder and so on.
“America is in love with herself again” proclaimed one of the party guests.
This year, America is anxious, apprehensive, waiting to see what happens now, and considering how we will respond. The throngs are coming together not in celebration but in resistance at a time, where once more in our history, we relearn how patriotic dissent is. And we realize it is our responsibility to pick up that mantle.
So I needed fortification this weekend to get through these days, and to prepare myself for the march, for the fight. So yes, I pulled out an old favorite this weekend – breakfast pasta studded with bacon, eggs and sautéed onions – starchy, fatty, salty and chocked full of umami cheesy goodness comfort.
We are America and we are here to stay. Do not despair. Do not give up.
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