Food Glorious Food

*Food is my love language.  It’s how I give love to my family, my friends.  Hospitality is the way that I provide space for celebrations and the building of kindred friendships. 

 

* When I want to get to know someone better, I invite them to our home for drinks or dinner or both. We sit on the front porch if the weather cooperates.  I am the chef and my husband David is the bartender.  That man of mine makes a mean Old Fashioned in the cool winter months complete with a Luxardo cherry…two for me and my girlfriends and one for the men. A delicious and refreshing gin and tonic made with my favorite Roku gin is my summer refresher.   He serves these up with his charming smile and his promise for refills!

 

*Our best conversations are served up with good food and atmosphere.  We share stories, rant and rave over the state of the world, talk about what we’re reading… especially what we’re reading. And we share past memories.  Like the year we invited Sophie’s ACT coach to Thanksgiving.  He was a mess.  He talked the whole time which was hard on our friend Steve because he’s usually the center of attention.  This man said the most outrageous things, possibly because he drank more than anyone I have ever known.  One funny thing he said was that he was going to run for governor of Tennessee, and he was sure he was going to win.  We never saw him again after that night, but he is forever “the governor” and lives in our memory banks forever.  He also was a very good ACT coach, but I can’t remember his real name and I don’t think you’ll find him if you google the governor.

​

 *Food can become stories and memories. I’m going to a family reunion next week in Pella, Iowa. We will be eating dried beef from Ulrich’s meat market and baked goods from Jaarsma’s.  I have dreams about their Dutch letters and their spice Santa Klaus cookies not just because they are delicious but because they remind me of my childhood and the people I love that are no longer here.   What food has the power to transport you to another time and place?

​

*I love that the church also celebrates with a feast each week which we in the Anglican and Catholic tradition call the Eucharist or the great Thanksgiving. I love that in our tradition, Christ instituted a means in which we gather together in gratitude to feast, celebrate and remember that there is power to transform simple things like bread and wine into so much more. In the liturgical view, food and community and celebrations are made sacred when we link the earthiness of even a bowl of soup shared with friends or strangers into a means of salvation and grace. In this sense, food has the power to transform and that is a glorious thing.

  

Join me as we share this food journey together with all of its endless possibilities … invite a stranger to a meal… you just might make a new friend. I hope I can become yours.