Meal Train of Love
There are many reasons I cook: from the obvious (“I’m hungry”) to the quotidian (“It’s dinnertime”) to the philosophical (“I feel alive when I’m working with my hands in the kitchen.”) One reason that rightfully gets a lot of good press is: I cook because it’s how I show my love. This reason is an easy one to see in the real world. Baking a birthday cake for someone is clearly an act of love. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for your extended family is love. Packing a lunchbox for a little person is love.
When I was pregnant with Arthur, my friend Rachel asked me if I’d like her help in setting up a meal train for the weeks following the baby’s birth. I knew about meal trains because I had participated in them by cooking and dropping off food for friends. But I had never been on the receiving end, and I wasn’t sure I needed it. Or, I should say, I wasn’t sure I deserved it. Cooking is how I make a living. Cooking is something I know how to do well. Wouldn’t my friends and family think I was asking for something I already had?
I worried a little about the perception of redundancy, but ultimately, I was far more concerned about other things like the birth itself and the baby’s health. I told Rachel I’d be grateful for her help.
She quickly went to work building a calendar and compiling a list of email addresses. She drafted a lovely message detailing our food preferences and asking our friends and family to please choose an available date. She planned to click send on that email as soon as she got word from Graham that the baby had arrived. I continued to waffle on the meal train. “People can say no, right?” I asked Rachel. “We are not picky and would be thrilled with any kind of food,” I unhelpfully told her when she was trying to figure out suggestions for take-out and delivery.
And then, before I could stall further with any more questions, Arthur was born. We were so caught up in marveling at his perfect little toes and, you know, all the other post-birth necessities that I nearly forgot about the meal train.
Our first meal came to us on our first evening at home as a family of three. It was from Rachel, and it was Comal’s grilled flank steak, brothy pinquito beans and red rice, two kinds of salsa, guacamole, chips, a crunchy green salad with cotija and cilantro-yogurt dressing, and cornmeal-lime shortbread cookies. Graham made me a plate and I hungrily ate at least two servings while sitting in bed. Tears fell from my eyes. I can still distinctly remember how good that steak tasted.
A couple of days later, the next meal arrived. And every two days thereafter, another delicious, nourishing, love-filled meal appeared as if by magic on our doorstep. I felt like I was re-living my birthday or Christmas morning over and over, like some kind of dream Groundhog Day. We ate our favorite foods and we were introduced to our friends’ favorite meals. 24-hour beef noodle soup with short ribs and bone broth. Daeho’s galbi-jjim and spicy kimchi. Moroccan stew with chickpeas, greens, and dried apricots.
Pam cooked a feast that could have been served at Chez Panisse without anyone batting an eye. It included individual molten chocolate soufflés and instructions for how to bake them so that they’d be puffed and hot for our dessert. Lisa dropped off not one, not two, but three separate meals. Elise texted to ask if we needed anything other than food and then didn’t tease me at all when I pleaded for her to bring a large bag of Epsom salts for the bath. She also brought homemade chicken and wild rice soup plus a loaf of crusty bread, which she lovingly packed in a basket for us to keep along with a brand-new stack of dish towels. Eight months later, and we haven’t used any other towels—these are the best. Friends who live in Los Angeles and New York and everywhere in between ordered meals to be delivered. I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude. I felt supported, cherished, and nurtured. I felt the embrace of my community.
Before our meal train experience, I knew I showed my love by sharing food with others. What I had yet to learn was that I feel most loved when others share food with me.
