M.I.A.

I’ve been M.I.A. and I just cannot believe that so much time has gone by since the last time I posted – not sure where it went but I’ve had alot going on. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again “the older I get the faster time flies and it sucks!” I actually had an idea for something else, but I’ll table it for now because I have to speak to this. First off, I’m not going dark again…I will continue to write and publish, I really honestly didn’t even realise just how much time has passed since my last entry.

This past Sunday was the annual “Men Who Think They Can Cook” event in ATL. I’m sure that I’ve written about this event before, but it was brought into fruition by one of the old heads here in our Atlanta community (she will kill me for calling her that, but it’s fine I’ll take meh cuss). I moved to Atlanta in 1991 at the mere young age of 19 and for the first 3/4 years or so, I knew very few Trinidadians and then one day I had the privilege of meeting this lady (I wish I could remember how we met), P. Ram. And all of a sudden, I was exposed to a Trini community that remains my family outside of Trinidad to this day. These people didn’t know me or any of the other students who came here to go to school, but they knew that we were young, students who left their parents’ homes and pretty much had nothing and that was all that mattered. They welcomed us into their homes, their lives and we became “their children”. Now that we have grown up, when we get together or see each other, it’s a beautiful thing. So much time has passed and it’s hard to fathom that they were around my current age when we first met…WHA?!? P. Ram is called Aunty P by EVERYONE…and I mean EVERYONE. She is a pillar of strength in, and the glue of the community and all she has to do is say something or ask for something and it gets done (she also has a nickname “Queen of the underworld”, but you didn’t hear that from me…heeheehee).

I don’t quite remember when she had the idea to start the “Men Who Think They Can Cook” event but she started making phone calls to all the men in the community and pitched the idea which was a cooking competition amongst the men. Each chef comes out with their food which is then sold to attendees and a portion of the proceeds is donated to a Multiple Sclerosis organisation on my behalf. It’s an MS awareness, fund raiser that is done because of me for me and it is very touching to me every, single year. For the first number of years, I told her to work with the MSCA since I was a patient there. I am no longer affiliated with the MSCA (story for another day…one of 2020 happenings) and so this year, I told her to work with Catalyst Sports. I was extremely happy when Gillian from Catalyst agreed and was available to come out to support as well. This is one of those times when the “old” old people, the “current” old people and the “current” old people’s kids come together and have a whale of a time eating GREAT food, drinking and limin for hours. I feel confident saying that everyone looks forward to it year after year.

I don’t usually say anything at the event, but this year I wanted to and felt that it was long overdue that I thanked Aunty P. and her organising crew, the chefs (repeats and new…in fact I believe that the winner this year was a newbie), all the supporters who came out and of course, Catalyst – meeting that crew is one of the highlights of the past few years for me. It is always overwhelming to see the support, feel the support that I have in our community, and I just needed them to know how grateful I am.