PA Update: Breakfast My Way

The Parents’ Association sponsored two Breakfast My Way events this fall, one in October, and the second in December. The breakfasts shared an unintentional but fortuitous theme of celebrating the Festival of Lights in different cultures, as October’s event focused on Diwali, and December’s breakfast honored Hanukkah. Breakfast My Way is a wonderful opportunity for the parent community to come together to learn about their fellow parents’ cultures and traditional breakfast foods.

The first Breakfast My Way was hosted by PA president Keech Combe Shetty and Akshay Shetty, parents of Lokaya in the Yellow Cluster. The event took place during Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights, which is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. Though traditions may vary, the common theme for the holiday is to embrace the triumph of good over evil, and light over darkness.

The breakfast featured a menu of traditional Indian food featuring aloo ki sabzi, a traditional Indian potato curry cooked without onion or garlic, with methi paratha, Indian flatbread with wheat flour, vegetable oil & fenugreek leaves, brushed with ghee. There was also uttapam, a pancake made with fermented rice lentil batter, with coconut chutney, and masala chai.

Akshay and Keech gave a few remarks to introduce the event, including a telling of one of the various origin stories of the festival. Akshay then closed his remarks with gratitude towards Gaynor for the school’s rich community, saying, “It's a great moment, a great holiday, a great week to bring people together, bring communities together, to celebrate each other's differences. When I think of Stephen Gaynor School I think it represents what Diwali is.”

Speaking directly to Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor, he added, “You have created this incredible community, this incredible school, and have transformed the lives of so many of our kids. Looking around here, this is what Diwali does. It celebrates this sense of community, this sense of coming together, and this sense of togetherness so thank you, thank you for setting this up, thank you for bringing us together.”

On December 14, parents gathered for the second Breakfast My Way of the year in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights. The event was hosted by Daniella and Adam Pally, and Sindy Liben, parents and grandparent of Cole in the Silver Cluster, who shared a traditional Jewish bagel breakfast from New York City landmark Barney Greengrass. The mouthwatering spread included bagels and bialys, lox, schmear (a.k.a., cream cheese), jelly donuts, and latkes (potato pancakes).

The Pallys welcomed everyone to the breakfast, with Adam saying, “One of the big things in Jewish culture is a term called ‘fressing,’ which is when you basically catch up with a friend and you eat and you talk about nothing and everything. We are grateful to the entire Gaynor community to let us fress with you; Happy Hanukkah!”

Thank you to both those who have hosted and those who have come to the breakfasts so far this year, and we look forward to more parent events in the future!