#245. The casserole of hope.
May 21st by JonA friend of mine recently experienced a tragedy. In talking with her about it, she surprised me by saying, “I forgot how much food we Christians give each other when something like this happens.” It was such a beautifully perfect statement and one that she was uniquely qualified to make. In the last week she had been given roughly 37 different casseroles of hope. What’s that?
A casserole of hope is a food dish that a Christian gives you after a tragedy. It usually involves pasta and cheese in some format, but sometimes, if they really love you, they’ll make something in a crock pot. But there’s the challenge, it’s hard to know what to give someone. Do you make something big and hearty or light and fruity? Is it one meal or a series of meals? Is a dessert too frivolous? Does a serious situation require a serious meal, like some sort of melodramatic stew? That’s why I’ve come out with an easy list of what type of dishes certain tragedies require. Print it out and put it on your fridge. It will serve you well in a time of need and casserole.
Tragedies and the food they require:
1. Car wreck
This depends of course on the severity of the crash, but the key here is to give them food that is not portable. Chances are the crash might have occurred from trying to eat a 27 layer burrito while driving. Don’t tempt them with any food that is in a tube form or easy to eat in the car. I recommend you give them soup with a packet of forks. It’s really hard to eat soup with a fork in a moving car.
2. Fire
Nothing baked. Nothing spicy. Nothing seared. Nothing grilled. The important thing is to not giving them any food that will remind them of the fire. The last thing you want to give them is your famous “four alarm chicken wings.” Give them food carved of ice. I’m not sure what that is, but I’m sure you can get it at Whole Foods or another upscale grocery store.
3. Hole in bedroom ceiling made while chasing a squirrel.
This is actually a good situation for beef jerky. For starters, the person who’s ceiling was wrecked by a friend possibly named Jeff that was texting a girl instead of staying focused on not wrecking the ceiling can pretend the jerky is the squirrel. Also, jerky is easy to clean up in case this hypothetical person named Jon Acuff is required to sleep on the couch because he messed up his bedroom which his wife completely didn’t see the humor in. And lastly, the squirrel is still loose and he’ll need a meal he can eat on the run or on the rafters of his attic as it were.
4. Loss of employment
I don’t know what to get someone but I do know what not to get someone, Easy Mac. This is small packets of mac and cheese you can microwave. When a company I worked for went out of business I took what I called “the summer of Jon.” Or as my in-laws called it, “That guy got unemployed mere weeks after marrying our daughter and taking her from Georgia to Boston.” I like my name better. My wife’s one boundary was that I had to get up when she got up for work. That meant that at 6:30 every morning I was showered and dressed with nowhere to go. I decided to kill time by eating Easy Mac for breakfast and lunch and snacks. I gained like 10 pounds. Give an unemployed person a salad.
5. Loss of pet
Don’t worry too much about nutrition when someone is going through a difficult time. If the family dog ran away or the house caught on fire the last thing people are concerned about is exercising their “core” and getting enough lycopene. Yeah, that’s right, I said lycopene. If the pet they lost was an exotic one like a tiger or a crocodile, don’t make this family any food. Seriously, you don’t want to be part of any sort of “Lost my Cobra” search committee. On a side note, I love those stories where someone gets bit by their pet lion and says, “We raised that lion like a member of the family. It’s just so weird that it bit us.” No, no it’s not. It’s a lion. It’s weird that it used to lay on your living room rug and watch “Extreme Home Makeover” with you.
Hopefully, the next time you or someone you know faces a tragedy, you’ll remember these helpful rules.
(Thanks to Robyn for sharing a funny, honest idea during the midst of a difficult time.)
Comments
on a depressing note, steven curtic chapman needs a casserole. i hope everyone keeps his family in your prayers. this is horrible.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/22/chapman.daughter.ap/index.html
-sandy
Rom 8:28 is a great verse and does bring hope (in time) to a bad situation. But when I’m going through unimaginable pain, I don’t need somebody telling me how everything is going to be just fine as if to say that my pain isn’t real or that my faith has somehow faltered. Instead, I would rather have friends like Job’s that will cry with me and not try to give me advice.
ed_faulkner,
Glad to hear that we’re not the only ones. We are in year 7 of trying to have children. And we’ve heard plenty of crazy stuff too. We’ve gotten the other person’s “vision” too. We have been told about church x and their healing services. And then there’s the lady with 17 children that had a miscarriage once and thinks she can relate. Of course, the classic one: “have you considered adoption?”.
I smiled when I read ivey mccoig’s post about the Funeral Food song. My husband is a funeral director, and man, does he have stories about church ladies and funeral lunches. I can’t wait to share the song with him…
Idea for blog entry: funeral lunches and how they’re handled
Or maybe just the use of Jello salads – in liturgical colors of course!
I must let you know, my mom has cancer right now, and this post has really ministered to me. I think it’s a bit more tasteful than some of the food we’re getting. People just don’t understand, we like to eat out. Don’t make us eat at home have to wash dishes! Sheesh! You want to help us, give us a brief vacation from the house like a gift card. But yeah, I just came home for the summer from seminary and your blog is a miracle and I think you should write a devotional book with some of this material. If you don’t, I’ll just find Bible verses for these you already have and use them.
It cracks me up everytime you talk about working out and you put the word “core” in quotes. I laugh until my “core” hurts.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
- I think “…used to ‘lie’…” would be more grammatically correct. Other than that – awesome post.
i feel #3 in particular spoke to my heart, felt like it was written specifically for me.
And #4, I love easy mac (the chicken flavoured kind), yeah we actually get it in NZ!
I’m late to this post, but when our dog died, our neighbor bought us Black Dog Ale. Yes, we had a black dog.
Elizabeth,
Okay, let me get this straight. Your dog dies, then your neighbor brings you alcoholic beverages. Never mind how tacky it was for them to bring “Black Dog” Ale. I’m just wondering what they said when you came to the door.
“Your dog died. That sucks, let’s drink!”
I’m really sorry about your dog, and your neighbor.
A friend of mine experienced this abundance recently as her dad had just had a stroke. Their family isn’t that picky food-wise, so when the organizer asked what they liked to eat, she said, “I don’t know … nothing too spicy … We like spaghetti?”
They ate spaghetti for the next week.
So I’m in the process of reading through all your entries as a new reader of your genius blog and I must say this one is PRICELESS!!
I really liked the one about the fire. Let us also remember that they probably don’t want to see the color red, which definitely makes this a tough situation in considering what to prepare. This leaves out everything made with tomato sauce (like 50% of all casseroles) and ketchup, the quintessential casserole topper when all else fails.
Best to stick with chicken and mashed potatoes
So good.
I think it's weird to make a bunch of unhealthy casseroles and desserts and bring them to a sick person. It should be a bunch of super-healthy food!
And what's the deal with those weird gelatin "salads"?? Gross.
When my grandma died my friend promised to make me a non-casserole (as soon as he figured out what a non-casserole was). It's been 10 months and he still hasnt given it to me.
Man, this is great. So true! The fire one is the best. And the disposable cookware? My mom asked for her stuff back several times over the years growing up. We talked about getting disposable stuff all the time but she kept bringing food in the good stuff.