People are the same everywhere. I didn’t always see this. It is easy to not identify with other people in which you seemingly have nothing in common. It is easy to disassociate yourself or your feelings with a large group of people that are a world away or live in wildly different circumstances. For example, if something happens in China or Russia, it might be second nature to read or hear about a story and not relate to the people involved. Or the things going on in Syria, Afghanistan, or Turkey. Those things would never happen to us, and they are used to living in a different way than us, right?

Well, here is what I have learned from living in different places and meeting different people. Everyone has the same motivations, enjoyments, loves, hurts, etc.

Everyone wants what is best for them and their family. Everyone wants to be successful. And everyone loves and instinctually protects their family.

This last weekend, we celebrated the union of one of our Indian cousins, and her groom from central Florida. This wedding beautifully exemplified my point. There was a magnificent melding of cultures in this wedding, but if you look deeper, there was not much compromise being made by either side. The reason being we are already so similar.

Ok, maybe everyone doesn’t have an elephant at their wedding, but wouldn’t we all love to?

Our cousin Deepa, is from India, and our new cousin Joe is from the deep south, backwoods of Florida. But here is what they share. They are both happy, educated people, who seek a good time and have a blind, unyielding love for each other. American or Indian, Asian or Caucasian, doesn’t matter, we can all relate to that.

So far, I am sure everyone is wondering how is this post at all related to food? Well, a ceremonial dinner in India (for the non-vegetarians) is a whole pig roast. A celebratory dinner in southeast of America is also a pig roast. What a coincidence. I was fortunate enough to witness and document the process of roasting this pig.

For this particular pig, we used a box, but you could easily use a pit, or just suspend the pig over coals, but in the box scenario, we place the coals on the top of the box.

The beauty of a pig roast, is you just need time.

But the final product is fantastic. The skin, or cracklin, is crunchy and amazing, and the meat inside is tender and falls of the bones.

Here our little Play Gourmet is enjoying a pig ear.

As an aside, all of the food at the wedding was awesome. Here is some chicken on skewers.

You can bet that 9000 miles away, we are doing more than just celebrating the same way.