Hospitality in fierce climes is crucial. The hospitality of the desert is legendary, and several biblical stories hinge on it. Who knows, some suggest, but you might at any time be entertaining angels. Abraham and Sarah made a comfortable place for visitors, undercover messengers of God, who declared that the elderly Sarah will finally have a son. The criminality of Sodom’s population is immediately evident to readers simply by their intent to harm the visitors (also angels in human guise) in their midst.
I live in the South, where people pride themselves on gracious hospitality, and it is indeed a lovely tradition, but right now I’m back in northern Minnesota where I great up, right on the tip of Lake Superior.
My mom had knee replacement surgery, and I’m here to help. Truth is, I’m doing very little. I figured that at least I could cook, but among this community of “cold hands, warm hearts” there is a steady supply of food. It’s delivered with little fanfare — quick hellos and sympathetic hmmmms — in dishes marked with their owners’ names in neat permanent marker for easy return.
We just finished Julie’s chicken soup thick with the fine, long grains of native wild rice. We’ve had a cheesy casserole, Ruth’s blueberry muffins, and some lemon bars that pucker my cheeks just to think about. Carol made her A++ meatloaf dinner, complete with mashed potatoes, carrots, and coleslaw. We are, sad to say though, running dangerously low on rhubarb desserts. It is rhubarb season, after all, and First Lutheran Church is gearing up for the annual rhubarb festival to benefit CHUM, which among other things provides transitional housing for the homeless.
My dad thinks our strategy should be to pit the women in an endless bakeoff. For example, call Marj and tell her that her rhubarb pie was really nice, but that Carol’s rhubarb crisp was just a bit better. Then call Carol to say that we enjoyed her rhubarb crisp but Marj’s pie was superior. Wouldn’t each like to try again? We’d be willing to judge.
At my parents’ house, hospitality has turned on its head for the moment. People bring their kindness to us. They don’t stay long, these visitors, but with a hey-how’s-it-going, maybe a dry joke or two, with pie tins, casseroles, and muffin baskets, they bear tidings of healing; and when they leave, something like home trails in their wake. For the record, though, we could use some more rhubarb.
