A Meal Is Not Always a Gift to the Family Eating It

A woman I like very much said it to me while we were stacking chairs after a baby shower: "A meal is a meal. Nobody ever complained about a casserole." She meant it kindly, and she's brought plenty of them herself, so I let it go that afternoon. I've been arguing with her in my head ever since, because I don't think it's true, and I have a refrigerator's worth of evidence.

The first Sunday after Ben came home, I stood at my own counter at four in the afternoon with him on my shoulder and tried to work out whose pan was whose.

The Sunday I counted the pans

We had been so well looked after, and what comes next sounds ungrateful and I'm not. Seven dinners arrived in the first nine days, and the ward sign-up sheet had been filled in before I'd even left the hospital. People I'd never exchanged more than a wave with were standing on my porch with their hands full.

And on that Sunday the fridge held three glass nine-by-thirteens, two of them with a strip of masking tape and a name on it, plus a foil pan of something whose name tape had come off in the cold. One was a chicken and rice dish. One was a lasagna, which was lovely. The third was a hash brown casserole with a crust on top that had been perfect on Thursday and was now a damp sort of lid. I couldn't tell which one had to be eaten first, and I had no idea what was in the foil pan, and Caleb, who was eight, had asked twice whether there was anything he could eat without a fork and a plate and a sit-down. Lily, who was five, had decided the foil pan was a mystery prize and wanted to open it. David was asleep on the couch with his church tie still on, the first real sleep he'd had in days, and I let him sleep. I was crying a little.

Every pan with a name on it had to be washed and carried back to somebody, and the foil one I never did match to a person. It sat on top of the refrigerator until January.

What I remember most fondly from that week was a bag. A woman named Nan Hadley left a paper grocery bag on the porch and rang the bell and went back to her car before I got there. Inside were two quarts of soup in plastic deli containers with the date on the lids in marker, a rotisserie chicken, a loaf of sandwich bread and a bag of clementines. A note said the containers were for keeping or throwing out, her choice. I ate that soup standing up at the stove with the baby asleep in the crook of my arm.

What a family can use at five o'clock

What I took from that week is a handful of boring rules, all of them about the person eating.

Start with the container, which should be something that never has to come back to you. Foil pans and deli containers are a couple of dollars, and nobody thinks less of you for leaving your good Pyrex at home. I know the pull of it. Write the date on the lid and the oven temperature and minutes on a card, because a person on four hours of sleep can't be trusted with 350 or 375. If there's something in it people often can't eat, like nuts or onions, put that on the card too.

Then think about the hour the food will really be eaten, which is almost never the hour you dropped it off. A family in the middle of a crisis eats at three in the afternoon or at nine at night or standing up, so a meal that only works fresh and warm asks something of them. One that keeps three days in the fridge and also freezes asks nothing.

A family of four doesn't need a pan that feeds ten. I can't cook small to save my life, so I split it into two containers before I leave the kitchen and tell them one is for the freezer.

Think about who has to serve it, too. A pan that has to be cut into squares means somebody stands there cutting, and stacked dishes fall apart the minute they try. Things that scoop or ladle or pick up in the hand are easier.

Dinners that travel and reheat

My list is short and hasn't changed in years. Baked pasta in a red sauce, using rigatoni or ziti, because the tubes hold up when they're warmed a second time. Meatballs in sauce, with a bag of rolls beside them, since a meatball needs no cutting. Chili. Any soup that sits in a quart container, with a loaf of bread. Pulled pork or pulled chicken, with buns and no sides required. A pot of plain rice, which will go with whatever else they've been handed. And a rotisserie chicken from the store, which is no cheat at all, because it comes hot and feeds everybody and dirties nothing of theirs.

If there's room in the bag, put in something for breakfast. Nearly everyone brings dinner and almost nobody brings breakfast, and there are hungry people in that house at seven in the morning too. A dozen muffins, a box of cereal, a bag of bananas.

The one I won't bring again

Baked pasta in a cream sauce is the one, and it goes out the door with a gorgeous browned top, and I've been proud of it more than once. Warmed up a day later the sauce breaks into something oily and grainy while the noodles drink what's left.

Funeral potatoes, which every one of us in Utah can make in our sleep, come close. The cornflake top goes soft in a microwave, and a pan of potatoes isn't a dinner anyway. If they're what you've got, bring a rotisserie chicken to go with them.

When food is the wrong thing

Some families don't want a meal at all, because the freezer is full already or a relative in town is cooking or one child has an allergy list as long as your arm. Sometimes what's wanted is a load of laundry folded or an older kid driven to practice or a bathroom wiped down. You can't know unless you ask, and the asking has to be easy to answer. If you text "What would help most this week?" you'll get "Oh, we're fine!" back. "I'm free Thursday, would you rather have dinner or have me take the kids for two hours?" gets a real answer.

I wrote about a year of open-ended offers that went nowhere in Our Ministering Assignment Went Nowhere for a Year, and it comes down to the same thing, which is that a specific offer is easier to say yes to than an open door.

King Benjamin, talking to his people about the poor, lists what giving looks like.

I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

Mosiah 4:26

The last phrase is the one that gets me. My hands go straight to the recipe I'm proudest of, and those are my wants.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I ask what they want or just bring something?

Ask, if you can do it in one text they can answer with a thumbs up, and if you really can't, bring the plainest thing you make in something disposable with a card on top.

Is a store-bought dinner okay?

Yes, and often better. A rotisserie chicken and a bag of salad is a real meal, and nobody has to wonder what's in it. I'd take that over a heroic homemade dish with strings attached.

When is the best time to bring a meal?

The third or fourth week. The sign-up sheet is full for the first few days and then there are gaps, and the gaps are where a dinner is most welcome. Take the empty slot nobody else wants.

Do I have to be there when I drop it off?

No. Text that it's on the porch and skip the visit unless they ask you in.

Somebody brought you something once and it was exactly right. What was it, and what made it right? I mean the food or the container or the way it arrived, whichever it was for you. Tell me in the comments, because I'm trying to build a better list than the one I have.

with love, Melissa