The Healing Powers of Food

One year ago, Super Bowl preparations were underway. My master plan, which ultimately came to fruition, was to celebrate the festivities in a big way…minus the actual Super Bowl. My shindig was called “Super Bowl Without the Super Bowl,” and as nine women gathered in my living room—no men were allowed—we dined on a cornucopia of foods, some store bought, but most of homemade dishes meant to please the palate. Maple bacon wrapped scallops, seven layer taco dip, warm crab casserole, deviled eggs and more—is your mouth watering yet?

On that day, food was the great equalizer. It provided comfort, nourishment and constant companionship. It is as it always has been, isn’t it? And that’s part of the charm that makes food so special.

Fast forward a year later, to present day.

A few nights ago my sisters and I gathered around a table at a local restaurant and quietly ignored the giant talking buffalo head that hovered above us. We had come together to Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse after an emotionally exhausting day at the hospital visiting our 83-year old dad who was suffering from complications after knee replacement surgery which soon digressed into one bad thing after another.

As we ordered our multitude of dishes—from BBQ chicken nachos to steak tips to shrimp and rice to good old fashioned all-American beef burgers—we breathed a collective sigh of relief, albeit a brief one. It was our one moment out of a day filled with stress, uncertainty and flashes of anger borne out of a lack of information. And there we sat, the daughters of a man who had only been hospitalized once before in his entire eighty-three years, filling our bellies at our makeshift communal table. Our sibling status brought us together. The love and concern for our dad kept us together. But it was the promise of food that held us captive in the restaurant.

And once again, isn’t that the way it always is?

Food has a distinctive way of bringing people together. The unseen magical properties of food serve as a bonding agent of sorts. It can bring total strangers together, bring a sense of calmness to an otherwise hectic experience and it is, simply put, damn good.

What my sisters and I ate is relatively inconsequential. For all its greatness, food isn’t the cure-all. The important factor for us that evening is that we were together.

It’s been over a week now since Daddy’s been hospitalized. He’s still there, in the midst of other ailing patients, awash in a sea of sickness and a relative prisoner in Room 321. And the hits just keep on coming. We don’t know yet when he’ll be discharged. But once he is given the all-clear and is back home enjoying the comforts of his own bed, the food frenzy will likely be repeated. Except this time, it will be in celebration…a celebration of life, longevity, love and our Daddy.

Mmmmm, I can’t wait. I can almost taste the food now.