Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food

Misty Archambault

 

For years, I had a bumper-sticker-sized magnet on my refrigerator that said: “Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food.” It came with an order from Penzeys Spices. I would still have this magnet hanging in my kitchen except that I bought a new refrigerator that, for reasons I cannot understand, won’t hold a magnet. I displayed this piece of promotional material because if my family had a religion, the Penzeys slogan would have been its single commandment. Love people, cook them tasty food.

Inviting me into your home and allowing me to see an empty refrigerator is a personal insult, the passive aggressive equivalent of spitting in my face. My in-laws, who dwell in Minnesota—our country’s leader in passive aggressiveness—have insulted me this way. Their near-empty refrigerator upon my arrival with my husband and kids for a Christmas visit once set off the closest thing I’ve had to a nervous breakdown. Letting my hungry kids open the refrigerator to a half gallon of milk, a few condiments, and uncooked chicken was like greeting us with a sign that said, “Welcome! Now get the fuck out!” Confronted by such hate, what could I do but confine myself to a bed in the basement for all of Christmas Day? 

Gatherings in my family centered on food. Vacations centered on food. Daily life centered on food. When my brother was in elementary school, the first thing he would do when we got home from school was call my mother at work: “What are we having for dinner?” She would tell him, and he would hang up, happy. She would never say, “I don’t know.” How could she say, “Darling boy, I don’t care about you” to her son?

Asking over breakfast what is for lunch. Normal. Asking over lunch what is for dinner. Encouraged. Mocking an aunt for two decades for bringing a too-small bowl of potato salad to a potluck. Obligatory.

And still, we all let my mother die from not eating. 

When I visited, we’d wheel her in her chair into Sarge’s Sports Bar, where the staff knew her by name, where they would bring a glass of Kendall Jackson chardonnay without being asked. She’d get a plain burger with American cheese. It sat in front of her until everyone else finished, then my stepfather would remove a plastic take-out container from the backpack he carried everywhere, put the food in the container, and return the container to his bag. Looking out for the environment. The refrigerator collected the plastic containers, then my stepfather ate the burgers, fed the cold French fries to the dogs, and washed out the containers for another trip to Sarge’s.

Love people, take them to a restaurant to order tasty food. Love people, let them smell the food as it turns from tasty to cold and inedible on the table. Love people, feed their dinner to the dogs.

About a month before she died, my sister asked my stepfather in the family chat:

Good morning Bob just checking on mom. How is she doing? Is she eating any more?

She is still not eating or drinking much.

Why is she not eating or drinking?

She doesn’t want to. I try bribing her with ice cream and desserts [cupcake emoji] which works sometimes.

The next week, from my sister again:

Good morning Bob How is mom doing?

No change other than gradually getting weaker and weaker

The next week, from my sister again:

I’m planning on meeting Mom and Bob for lunch at the Sunset Grill in Belgrade next Saturday if anybody wants to come

I wasn’t there, but I know what happened. They wheeled my mother into Sunset Grill, where the staff did not know her by name. She ordered a KJ chardonnay, which she drank. She ordered a plain burger with American cheese, which my stepfather slipped into his backpack as they settled the tab.

After the death and before the funeral, the family group chat overflowed with debates about food orders, with links to catering menus, with pictures of the fudge and cookies people had made to bring. In a separate group chat with just my siblings, we complained that my stepfather was not ordering the food promptly, worried that he was not ordering the right food, fumed because he was not ordering enough. 

Then, at the funeral, we had too much food. Too much of everything. The “large” size potato and pasta salads we ordered from the caterer arrived in cartoonishly giant bowls, more like vats or buckets than bowls. “We probably didn’t need both potato and pasta salad,” my brother said when both vats remained mostly untouched at the end of the event. Next to the salads, there were three trays of deli meats and cheeses, a dozen bags of rolls for the guests to assemble sandwiches and sliced homemade bread in case store-bought wouldn’t do. An open box of fifty single-serving bags of chips sat on the table and four identical unopened boxes hid themselves underneath. Cookies stacked on cookies stacked on cookies. Dips, fudge, crackers, olives, pickles. (We only ran out of coffee. My mother never drank it and the one portable box we brought in from Dunkin’ had been an afterthought.)

You could look at the long line of dishes—the heaps and buckets and bags of food—and you could see what we were doing. The food practically hummed: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

 

 

Misty Archambault is a former attorney and writer. She lives in Pawling, NY with her partner, three kids, and some pets. Her poetry is forthcoming in Literary Mama.

RUNA (aka Rute Norte) was born and lives in Lisbon, Portugal. She graduated from the University of Lisbon, and later received her Master’s degree in Painting, at Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Lisbon (2022). Her master’s thesis focused on the theme of artist-travellers and is titled “The experience of place: its influence on the pictorial production of the artist-traveller, in the 21st century”. Additionally, she studied Photography at Cenjor, the Professional Training Center for Journalists, in Lisbon (182 hours of classes, 2018). RUNA was awarded a European Union Mobility Grant to undertake a one-month artistic residency in Armenia. She also completed an artistic residency in Bulgaria, as part of her approach as an artist-traveller, supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. RUNA has participated in more than thirty exhibitions, both individual and group, in Portugal, Spain, UK, Austria, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Armenia, Colombia, South Korea, Turkey and the USA. Website: rutenorte.com

 

Back to issue