Food Musings: Memorial Day, New Friendships

Standard party spread. Extraordinary party company.

Since the beginning of 2016, I've been working with my friend Ann, sending her a photo of food every week, so that she can write a poem about it that celebrates peace and send it off to her subscribers. I've decided to write a companion piece to the photos I send, musing about the way that food plays into our lives.Last week, George and I were invited to a backyard party thrown by one of the regular attendees in a Zumba class I've started teaching. I knew that some of the other regulars from the class would be there, so I would have a cushion of people to talk to, but the only person George would know there was...me. Which can be daunting, both for the don't-know-anyone partygoer and for the invitee. Should he stick by my side the entire time? Will the other kids play nice with him? Could I leave him to his own devices after a few minutes? Since I'm fairly confident that George is a likable kind of guy and that the people at the party weren't going to hit him with sticks, we took a deep breath and went to a party full of new people.It was wonderful.These people, who I only knew in a limited capacity (sweaty, shaking their moneymakers in my Zumba class) until the party, were warm and welcoming and funny. It took George and I thirty seconds--maybe less--to feel settled. And the ritual was the same. There was the greeting, the acclimation to the surroundings, waving hello and party-wide, informal introductions, and the piling high of plates filled with familiar picnic food. We broke bread and got to know each other. We made our way through heaps of beans and macaroni and chips and dips and crudites and fruit salad, all straightforward and comforting, like the people at the party.And I've seen the same layout in New Jersey, in Texas, in Boston. Maybe some of the regional specialties were different, but the overall gist is the same. And it's good. It's a way to connect, to build community, to take part in something that is greater than the sum of its parts. For that day, in those few gentle, funny, happy, warm hours, we were all connected in a way that made the world a slightly better place than if we had eaten the same food separately, in our own houses. And that is the point of our being social creatures, isn't it? To be greater together than we are apart? Read Ann's original poem here!