All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day.  When I was growing up, All Saints’ Day (the day after Halloween) meant a day off from school – I went to Catholic school, you see – but it didn’t really mean too much in the larger scheme of things.  I hadn’t yet lost anyone meaningful to me. 

My father, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned briefly in the past, died on Halloween in 2000.  Every year since then, I’ve made a point to have dinner with my mother on that day, just as a way of honoring his memory (and for his birthday and their wedding anniversary, of course).  Since my sister has small children now, though, Halloween is set aside for celebrating and getting dressed up in costume and taking them out Trick or Treating and all that, so this year, our dinner fell on All Saints’ Day (or Dia de los Muertos).  (Not to be confusing: we are not actually celebrating All Saints’ Day, dinner just fell on that day this year.) 

Feisty family meals are always a ton of yummy food.  The above is a bowl of soup-veggies – we had this wonderfully clear pork broth, and the veggies added a ton of flavor.  I forgot to take a picture of the soup. 

Bok choi sauteed quickly with what looks like ginger, though I assure you it didn’t taste like ginger (which I don’t like). 

Green beans…. yum.

Ginormous lobsters cooked on the grill. 

Steamed blue crabs

I promise you, there’s a steamed/baked whole fish under all that cilantro. 

Every dish was yummy, and courtesy of my brother-in-law.  Yes, we spent part of dinner talking about my dad and all of the funny moments we had while he was alive – including me ‘dumping’ a whole glass of cold water on him once (oops!), and … well, just know we honored his memory with lots of good food and funny conversation.  How it should be… well, really, he shouldn’t be dead, but that’s a whole other story not meant for this blog. 

Rest in Peace, Dad… You are missed every day.