In Defense of Hot Pot

If you ever want to understand me, just invite me to hot pot. There is genuinely no meal I love more, and I will happily defend it to anyone who'll sit still long enough to listen.

Why it's the best

The whole genius of hot pot is that it isn't really about the food, it's about the time. You sit around a bubbling pot of broth for hours, cooking things a little at a time, reaching across each other, arguing about whether the meat is actually done yet, and somewhere in there the eating quietly becomes secondary to just being there together. It's a meal that flat-out refuses to be rushed, and in a life that's usually moving way too fast, that turns out to be the entire point.

The spread

We went all out, the table absolutely buried under plates, way more food than any reasonable group of people could ever finish, the broth going from a gentle simmer to a rolling boil as we slowly worked our way through it. By the end everyone's full and sleepy and happy, the windows are all fogged up, and nobody wants to be the first one to get up and break the spell.

That right there is the good stuff. That's the thing I'm going to miss most when everyone scatters off to college.