See you in a Millet
<p>I first noticed our local donut shop when we viewed the apartment we moved into in October of 2021. I wanted to check out the neighborhood and see what sort of local eateries or sites there were around the corner. Being an American, my nose tuned into the steamy fragrance of fried dough as naturally as a fly landing on a fresh turd. But there was something different about this smell…it wasn’t like the donuts I knew back in the “land of the free.” The sign of the shop where the decadent fried dough fragrance emanated from read 美濃泰涼(Mei Nong Tai Liang). It wasn’t the characters that caught my eye, but a couple of details about the shop itself. Underneath the sign, there were words that read “Since 1969.” Off to the side of the shop, there were stalks of cereal grass (the plant that produces millet) hanging upside-down. The stalks had been placed there purposefully and with care, reminding me of a tradition I’ve seen elsewhere to ward off evil spirits. This shop was not just a donut shop — this shop was a character from a story book, a giant at the end of a beanstalk, a Rumpelstiltskin salivating over a milky freshly born baby next to a pile of golden yarn.</p>
<p><a href="https://jeffreyschwab-30696.medium.com/see-you-in-a-millet-e189efbcbfaf"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>