Don't Cry Over Spilled Tacos

How a messy restaurant floor became a masterclass in loss

Welcome to Sunday Supper!

Set the Table

Say your grace

Prayer - Dear God, Thank you for the resilience that is built through loss. Amen.

Affirmation - I am loved even through loss.

Gratitude - I am grateful for resilience.

I am grateful for every reader, subscriber, commenter, and those who share this newsletter with others.

The Main Dish

Dig in

Don’t Cry Over Spilled Tacos

My family recently went out to dinner to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We dined sufficiently (my mom’s favorite phrase after a great meal), and solved all of the world’s problems over tacos and enchiladas.

When we finished eating, my daughter started packing up her leftovers, and “splat,” her food fell on the floor. She looked down in disbelief and disappointment.

“Man! I looked forward to taking that food home,” she said.

She cleaned up the spill, and I helped her pack up the leftovers that didn’t hit the floor.

My daughter’s spill was a reminder that life is an experience filled with dealing with loss. Loss extends beyond death; it is the loss of food at the dinner table, the loss of relationships, the loss of a marriage, the loss of opportunities, the loss of a safe place to live, the loss of health, the loss of wealth, the loss of control, loss after loss after loss.

Loss is constant, but the response to it often reflects resilience.

I am grateful my daughter expressed how she felt after the spill, because emotions are a natural part of dealing with loss, and emotions are information. This information is often linked to what we value. My daughter values sustainability and not being wasteful, and her response reflected these values.

After she cleaned up the food and expressed her initial disappointment, she was okay. We left the restaurant and headed to get birthday cupcakes.

Sometimes, a single loss can feel like all is lost. For example, the part of the meal my daughter dropped was not her whole meal. She’d eaten most of it, and there was just a little left over for her to take home. She could have let the loss of the leftovers trump the entire meal and the previous five hours we spent riding roller coasters at an amusement park and eating junk food. The loss was a small blip on a day filled with many gains. We gained memories, had adrenaline rushes, bonded, and enjoyed our time together.

We lost some food at the table, but we kept the joy, and that, to me, is what it means to truly have dined sufficiently. Yes, life can be messy, but if we let loss overshadow the joys we experience, we risk allowing it to rule our lives for too long. Thankfully, the spilled food was just a fleeting moment in a day overflowing with love and laughter.

This simple experience at dinner was a microcosm of a much greater truth: loss is inevitable. As I reflect on the major losses in my life, I realize that some of the emotional memories linger, and there are things that I lost that I still grieve. Yet despite those losses, life continues to give me more than enough to be grateful for. Maybe this is what sustains us: not what we lose, but our ability to cherish what remains.

Pot Likker and Cornbread Crumbs

There’s flavor in the small things.

All is not lost.

Table Talk

Join the Conversation

My mom’s phrase is 'dined sufficiently.' What is a piece of 'family wisdom' or a specific phrase that has taken on a deeper meaning for you as an adult?

Potluck

From Our Community Kitchen: Book, Music, Art

Book

Music

Art

Palmer Hayden, The Janitor Who Paints, ca. 1937, repainted after 1940, oil on canvas, 39 1/8 x 32 7/8 in. (99.3 x 83.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.57.28

Recipe Exchange

Bake the Cake

This year is the first year in many years that I did not make a cake for my daughter’s birthday. I had plans to bake one, but the pollen and my allergies forced me to put the plans aside.

My daughter enjoys making brown butter, so in honor of her special day, I am sharing a cupcake recipe that combines a simple cake recipe with her love of brown butter.

Birthday Brown Butter Cupcakes

Yields: 12–14 cupcakes

The Ingredients

For the Cake:

• ¾ cup Unsalted butter (to be browned)

• 1 cup Granulated sugar

• 2 Large eggs (room temperature)

• 1 tbsp Vanilla bean paste (or extract)

• 1 ½ cups All-purpose flour

• 1 ½ tsp Baking powder

• ½ tsp Salt

• ½ cup Whole milk (room temperature)

For the Brown Butter Buttercream:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) Unsalted butter, softened

• 3 cups Powdered sugar, sifted

• 2 tbsp Heavy cream

• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste

• Pinch of salt

The Instructions

1. Brown the Butter: Melt the ¾ cup butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk constantly as it foams and pops. Once you see golden-brown bits at the bottom and it smells like toasted hazelnuts, remove from heat. Pour it into a bowl (including the brown bits!) and chill in the fridge until it is the consistency of soft room-temperature butter.

2. Creaming: Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream the solidified brown butter and sugar for 3–5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla.

3. The Mix: In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry). Mix until just combined.

4. The Bake: Fill liners 2/3 full. Bake for 18–22 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean.

5. The Frosting: Beat the 1 cup softened butter for 5 minutes. Gradually add powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla. Whip for another 2 minutes until it’s airy and light.

Dessert

A Sweet Send-Off

Any Human to Another By Countée Cullen

The ills I sorrow at
Not me alone
Like an arrow,
Pierce to the marrow,
Through the fat
And past the bone.

Your grief and mine
Must intertwine
Like sea and river,
Be fused and mingle,
Diverse yet single,
Forever and forever.

Let no man be so proud
And confident,
To think he is allowed
A little tent
Pitched in a meadow
Of sun and shadow
All his little own.

Joy may be shy, unique,
Friendly to a few,
Sorrow never scorned to speak
To any who
Were false or true.

Your every grief
Like a blade
Shining and unsheathed
Must strike me down.
Of bitter aloes wreathed,
My sorrow must be laid
On your head like a crown.