Feeding the Hungry

Well, yes, I can cook, thanks for asking.

Once upon a time I actually had a modest career as a high-end caterer. Owned a catering company called Cooking from the Hearth. Was a chef for a wealthy family on Boston's North Shore for a while, cooking for weekly dinner parties, and stocking their fridge and freezer with meals they could reheat for themselves. Catered weddings and parties. Catered an insurance company’s monthly 35-person Board of Directors meetings. (What Board of Directors needs 35 people??) Food for the rich, food for the soul.

The idea that sparked the business into life was that real folks need decent daily food to stave off the onslaught of obesity, heart disease and diabetes that our American culture is gleefully and mindlessly running toward. No one usually has (or takes) the time to provide themselves with a proper meal, finding that take-out egg rolls, fast-food-hamburgers and Meat Lovers Pizza fits into busy schedules better than homemade roast chicken or vegetable soup. So I created a menu of healthy and homey food my clients could choose from every week, and tailored meals to suit their personal dietary needs. Most clients stocked up on frozen soups, casseroles, stews, side dishes, whatever. Oh. And chili. Lots of chili. When their freezers emptied, they'd order again.

It didn’t make me rich, but the whole business worked well enough, especially for the client who didn’t know you actually had to add chicken to the Chicken Helper she prepared one evening to impress a potential beau. She thought it “just formed itself” out of the ingredients in the box. And who can blame her – the box didn’t actually say she should also buy chicken. I’m sure her potential beau never forgot that date, and I suspect she achieved her goal of impressing him, one way or another. I cooked for her for a long time after that. Well, of course I was always cooking for somebody and always exhausted.

Then friend Don took me to Italy for 3 weeks and I had a little epiphany. (Italy is a terrific place for an epiphany to strike. Just ask the Catholic Church.) Of course while I was basking in Italian sun, my stock pots and my coffers were empty. No cooking, no income. More importantly, when I broke a bone in my foot on the rocky beach on the sun-drenched Amalfi coast, I realized I wouldn't have any income for most of the time my foot was in a cast. I stood (barely) at the crossroads of either growing my business larger so that I wouldn't have to be on my feet foot so much, or climbing down off the food carousel. So I sold the business to another local caterer at a small profit, sat down, and stopped cooking for about 5 years. Well, of course, I didn't really stop all the every day stuff, just stopped the fantastical. Became queen of the take-out and delivery restaurants, just like all the clients I started with. I've only recently started cooking in earnest again. I used to be able to Really Cook. Now my skills are a bit rusty, lurking below the surface of the simmering pot. But I had to stop for a while until I could find the joy in it again.

As I think about this, typing to you now, I suddenly realize it's much like the way I dealt with relationships past. After frenzy, exhaustion and pain, I jumped off the relationship carousel entirely until I was sure I could find the joy again. Then, with rusty skills simmering below the surface, I found you, wanting to be nourished.

Huh. Whadda ya know? Another little epiphany.