Sunday Dinner

This is my last picture of Bogota and I am having a Colombian for dinner tonight plus a couple of Cuban Americans and one of our nuns who works in Japan. I have the large crock-pot filled with potatotes, onions, and carrots to cook slowly and the smell is drifting around the house and reminds me of Sunday dinners at home. My mother always cooked a roast surrounded by onions, carrots, and potatoes. My dinner will have grilled chicken breasts and string beans besides what I have in the crock-pot. But I have such good memories of those Sunday dinners at home.
Until I was in sixth grade and my brother, George, was born on the Christmas after Pearl Harbor and the war meant gas rationing, we had always gone to my paternal grandmother's for Sunday evenings. She was a real Irish matriarch and her six children were all present every Sunday night with family and friends as there was usually a lively game played around the large dining room table after dinner. My Dad and his five sisters loved to play card games and I think they sometimes used a beautiful roulette wheel that had been my grandfather's. Anyway, by the war and my newborn brother made those Sundays impossible, we began to have these wonderful roast dinners on Sunday afternoon. My maternal grandfather, my great aunt and a great uncle started coming for dinner on Sunday. After dinner we would get my grandfather to sing some Irish songs. When I entered the convent I remember wishing I could be home for those Sunday dinners- it was not just the good food, but the love and conversation as my parents loved to entertain and made everyone feel at home.