Love is Measured in Cooked Dishes...7 to be Exact

If there is one thing I don’t monkey with it’s tradition. And for this Italian-American, nothing screams tradition more than the holiday season, specifically La Vigilia, our Christmas Eve during which we celebrate the “Feast of the 7 Fishes.”

The origins of the celebration are as hotly contested among my people as is the perennial debate between whether the tomatoes that top pasta constitute “sauce”...or <gasp!> “gravy” (#teamsauce, here. Obvs.). The numerical significance has been traced back to a host of Biblical and regional symbolism: the seven days of creation, the seven sacraments, the seven hills of Rome and, in my family, the seven instances of “Anthonys” in my immediate family (to include the lone “Toni”).?

Now despite the string of stereotypes that I clearly cop to above, I ask those of you who might’ve seen the now iconic “Fishes” episode of Hulu’s The Bear to consider that disturbing level of dysfunction is in no way typical of la festa. Yes, I actually feature seven seafood courses. Yes, the planning can take upwards of a month, prep can take over a week, and day-of execution is especially labor-intensive and stressful.?

A bear, if you will, in itself.

But…while I don’t monkey with tradition, I likewise don’t suffer anywhere near the level of chaos that characterizes the aforereferenced Berzotto’s holiday table. And thankfully, neither does my family. Making each other crazy in an effort to achieve the quixotic goal of perfection is simply not on our holiday menu.?

My nonna used to say L’amore si misura in piatti cucinati: Love is measured in cooked dishes.?

So despite the meal’s significance or logistical requirements or Hollywood exaggeration of it, it’s an act of love for which you’ll never hear me complain. And, fortified with equal measures of careful planning and a healthy acceptance that everything will never go the way I expect it to (The baccala is too salty! The strufoli are too dense! We couldn’t possibly have run out of ice already! What do you mean we have 6 extra people?!), the effort reinforces our connection to generations of loved ones no longer with us, while serving as an opportunity to open our homes and our hearts and create new memories with the loved ones who remain.

Prep, execution, and plate-phasing seven courses of shellfish on any day of the year would require NASA-level precision. But incorporating meal logistics into an already hectic month of planning, shopping, cleaning, decorating, baking, and cooking yet another dinner for an entirely different set of guests the following day on Christmas proper (after which I’m getting on a plane and mercifully not chopping garlic for a week) reinforcements - both human and technological - were surely required.

Thankfully this year my cousins are rolling up their sleeves even before the actual holiday. This is where my requisite physical Personal Kanban falls short. My new “distributed team” needed something accessible from their own homes and phones (and shopping carts): a high-level overview of all we had planned - visible at a glance - while being able to drill down to a more granular level for details like recipes and shopping lists. Having all of this in one place clearly necessitated something far more robust than the venerable Post-it.

Enter Kanban Zone …and exit frantic calls and interminable family text chains asking Who’s confirmed they’re coming? Is the menu set? Will there be baked clams for Gina? Did we decide on stuffed artichokes? Where are we at with grocery shopping? Do we have enough non-shellfish options for Sophia and Mia? Who is bringing the ice? When are we picking up JoJo?

It’s all in there: The planning. The menus. The shopping list. The status of where we are at at any given time. There’s a reminder for me to take a breath - literally - and make time for my daily meditation practice, as self-care usually gets forsaken this time of year (arguably the most needed time for it). There’s a prompt for improving upon this year’s feast in the final “Kaizen” / Continuous Improvement column. And perhaps most important, the board gives each of us an understanding - at a glance - of who is at or beyond their capacity and might just need a little help or, a fresh cup of coffee, a freshly-baked cannoli cookie, and a hug.

To be sure, physical Post-its will no doubt be taking over on actual meal days, papering a corner of my kitchen as a visual radiator to give us all a sense of what is happening in real time and what needs to happen next. Because while age and experience have taught me people need to feel they are helping, tempers seem to become most frayed when someone offers they are “just trying to help.” No longer do folks need to seek direction from a harried cook asking What can I do? What should I bring out next? Is the aioli for the artichokes ready? Rather, they now have a visual mechanism that gives them the clarity and the agency simply to pull an already prioritized task from the Options column into Doing and lend a helpful, not at all intrusive hand.?

Prior to this year I tended to feel as the host I needed to “do it all.” Not simply (not only?) because I was a control freak but, because the coordination costs - I assumed - were far too high.?It's no doubt then that the holidays left me exhausted to the point I felt I couldn't enjoy anything or anyone.

But having Kanban Zone by my side for the month planning and leading up to and through the holiday and onto my vacation has given me the clarity and confidence to act when I need to work on something on my own, and the security that if I miss anything, my “teammates” have my back.?

And so long as I’m not missing one of my seven fish…I’m pretty sure any mistake will be recoverable.?

Interested in exploring Personal Kanban further to see how you too can improve your organizational and #prioritization skills around the holidays? Check out our new FREE eBook, Personal Kanban: A Starter Guide to #Productivity and #Balance, that I created in collaboration with the awesome folks at Kanban Zone .

#productivity #kanban #personalkanban #pkflow #lavm #modusinstitute #feastsevenfishes #tradition #holidaystress Modus Institute Personal Kanban