{"id":5809,"date":"2025-12-01T23:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=5809"},"modified":"2025-12-01T23:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:52","slug":"food-archambault","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/fall-2025-digital-lit\/food-archambault\/","title":{"rendered":"Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food \u2014 Misty Archaumbault \u2014 Fall 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deposit of Remnants and Beginnings by RUNA<\/p><\/div>\n

Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food<\/h1>\n

Misty Archambault<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For years, I had a bumper-sticker-sized magnet on my refrigerator that said: \u201cLove People, Cook Them Tasty Food.\u201d 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\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2014our country\u2019s leader in passive aggressiveness\u2014have 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\u2019ve 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, \u201cWelcome! Now get the fuck out!\u201d Confronted by such hate, what could I do but confine myself to a bed in the basement for all of Christmas Day?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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: \u201cWhat are we having for dinner?\u201d She would tell him, and he would hang up, happy. She would never say, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d How could she say, \u201cDarling boy, I don\u2019t care about you\u201d to her son?<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

And still, we all let my mother die from not eating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I visited, we\u2019d wheel her in her chair into Sarge\u2019s Sports Bar, where the staff knew her by name, where they would bring a glass of Kendall Jackson chardonnay without being asked. She\u2019d 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\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

About a month before she died, my sister asked my stepfather in the family chat:<\/span><\/p>\n

Good morning Bob just checking on mom. How is she doing? Is she eating any more?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

She is still not eating or drinking much.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Why is she not eating or drinking?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t want to. I try bribing her with ice cream and desserts <\/span><\/i>[cupcake emoji] <\/span>which works sometimes.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The next week, from my sister again:<\/span><\/p>\n

Good morning Bob How is mom doing?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

No change other than gradually getting weaker and weaker<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The next week, from my sister again:<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m planning on meeting Mom and Bob for lunch at the Sunset Grill in Belgrade next Saturday if anybody wants to come<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, at the funeral, we had too much food. Too much of everything. The \u201clarge\u201d size potato and pasta salads we ordered from the caterer arrived in cartoonishly giant bowls, more like vats or buckets than bowls. \u201cWe probably didn\u2019t need both potato and pasta salad,\u201d 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\u2019t 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\u2019 had been an afterthought.)<\/span><\/p>\n

You could look at the long line of dishes\u2014the heaps and buckets and bags of food\u2014and you could see what we were doing. The food practically hummed: <\/span>I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Misty Archambault<\/b> is a former attorney and writer. She lives in Pawling, NY with her partner, three kids, and some pets. Her poetry is forthcoming in <\/span>Literary Mama<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

RUNA<\/strong> (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 \u201cThe experience of place: its influence on the pictorial production of the artist-traveller, in the 21st century\u201d. 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<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back to issue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food Misty Archambault   For years, I had a bumper-sticker-sized magnet on my refrigerator that said: \u201cLove People, Cook Them Tasty Food.\u201d It came with Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3630,"featured_media":0,"parent":5625,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5809"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6044,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5809\/revisions\/6044"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}