On community: part 2

My dog, Kraken, is incredibly good at recognizing patterns. Within minutes of waking up, he knows whether it's a workday or a weekend, just based on how my husband and I behave. If it's a weekend, and I put on shoes and a jacket just after lunch, Kraken knows it's walk time. If it's a weekday, I'm out of town, and Carl puts on a dress shirt, Kraken knows he's going to spend the day with his Aunt Maria. Dress shirts are a bit of a signal for Kraken to misbehave, because he knows Carl is in a hurry and that means Kraken can incite a game of Chase. This dog excels at pattern recognition - for better or for worse. 

Every once in a while, Kraken will wake up to see two restful humans - that means it's a weekend. But then sometime in mid-morning, Carl will start cooking, and Kraken's internal pattern-recognition algorithm will tell him that the day is about to get awesome. Weekend + early-start cooking add up to: it's a party day!

Carl (USA), Ajito (Ethiopia), Clarissa (Germany), Lizt 
(Venezuela), and Maria (Greece) making sambusas. This is 
what living in community looks like. 

For a few years, my husband, Carl, and I have hosted themed dinner parties every couple of months. The parties serve two purposes: first, Carl loves to cook, and the parties give him a chance to cook at scale. Second, the parties are meant to build community. By hosting large gatherings, we aim to introduce our friends to one another and build a stronger network among them. 

And it's working. There was a moment on Saturday evening when I knew we had succeeded. There were some 30 people in my house, and I spent a good hour washing dishes in the kitchen alone. Nobody came by to find me or talk with me because they were too busy talking to each other. This was our goal all along! Carl and I were friends with this couple and that couple and this person and that person, but none of them knew each other. A true community is not a hub with spokes; it is a mesh. Each person is connected to the others, some closer, some farther, but they work together as a network. Slowly, step by step, we are building a strong, mesh-like community on Cape Cod. 

This weekend's dinner party was special for another reason, too: it was Ethiopian Night. My husband is pretty awesome and can cook a wide range of cuisines - Mexican, Cuban, German. He is equally adept at New England clam chowder and Tom Yum soup. His palette and his skill set span the globe, but he had zero experience with Ethiopian food. 

Injera (Ethiopian sponge bread) with four 
stews to accompany it. Clarissa even made 
napkin roses!

Well, until we met Ajito. 

Last fall, Ajito came to our house with his wife, Clarissa, and we hit it off right away. Carl and Ajito hatched a plan: Ajito would teach Carl how to make Ethiopian food, and then the cuisine of his childhood could become part of our dinner party repertoire. It took a few tries - and one very messy incident with hyperactive yeast - but Carl got the hang of it. We own an injera maker now. Our spice cabinet contains botanicals that I did not previously know existed: berbere and korerima and mitmita. But those flavors are part of my palette now. I embrace them, just like the doro wat and the tikil gomen they flavor. 

As our community grows in numbers, it also grows in scope. I am immensely grateful to Ajito for sharing his native cuisine and allowing us to incorporate those flavors into the culture of our community here in Massachusetts.