Taste and See: Love at School Lunches
Easter brunch at Mount Hope Lutheran School, memories of other loving Christian meal-makers
It’s an old saying, but a true one: food tastes better when shared with loved ones. People share sustenance, conversation, and time. They share themselves. I have said for years that a Lutheran love language is food, and no doubt many other Christians see this, too. This is one reason why I have enjoyed contributing to an Easter brunch at Mount Hope Lutheran School, a small classical gem here in Casper.
Nearly five years ago, some fellow school moms and I started an Advent dinner for the students and teachers. Our school is not part of the USDA’s school lunch program, so the only times our kids get a hot meal at noon are when we bring them ourselves, or at pizza lunches, twice-a-month happenings where Dominoes reigns in the kitchen. The kids love it, and we moms like the break from all the brown bagging. But Athena, Lisa, and I wanted to do something a little more special, and we figured we could swing it between us. We did, and we added the brunch during the fifty days of the Easter season to have a spring version of a special school meal. Since then, many ladies—and a few men—have contributed donations, time, and energy to continuing these seasonal traditions.
Lunch ladies—and gentlemen, though they are fewer and farther between—hold a warm place in my heart. My maternal grandmother Lucille worked for years as a school cook. She was born and raised on an Illinois farm, and she fed and nourished her five children on down-home fare, as well as hosting extended family and friends for get-togethers on a regular basis. She also made my parents’ wedding meal, preparing roasted turkeys and sides for over 400 guests. So preparing food for crowds of any size was a natural expression of love for her. “What can I get you to eat? You must be hungry,” she’d say when my family and I would arrive at her house, often late at night after a long road trip to visit. Despite our protestations, she’d pull out ham (she always had ham!), potatoes, and all kinds of dessert as we yawned and feebly protested and usually put away a few mouthfuls to her satisfaction before we’d collapse into bed. I remember her chasing my cousin down the hall after he’d mown her lawn—“Mattie, you should eat something!” as he tried to politely wave her off. The glass bowls in her living room always held mini Reese’s cups, which she refilled regularly. I can still remember the lingering smell of bacon and instant coffee in her kitchen. I always thought that I would’ve loved to have been in her school lunch line, to see her gap-toothed smile as she’d put too much food on my plate.
And it wasn’t just my grandma. At one small public elementary school I attended in Kentucky, our two or three hair-netted lunch ladies were beloved. They made either giant homemade cinnamon rolls or yeast rolls every Wednesday, and they were warm and friendly, and a little pushy, just like Grandma. (They weren’t Lutheran, but I’m sure they were Christians—probably Baptists, as this was the late 1980s in the Bluegrass State). One gentleman at our vicarage congregation in Connecticut, Ed, was a long-time school cook, an amazing chef, and one of the genuinely nicest guys I’ve ever met. He regularly made stellar meals for church dinners, donating his time and ingredients just because he took great joy in feeding his church family. Another dear lady at yet another congregation in Ohio, Lydia, was also a legendary school cook. She nearly single-handedly ran the large old-fashioned supper the church hosted as a fundraiser every year, with her menu of baked ham, raw apple cake and apple butter, and Lydia’s famous Schnitzel Beans always making an appearance. She never shared the bean recipe with anyone, not even my mother who asked for it several times, until she met my husband Jon. In Lydia’s bridal shower card to me, she inserted several hand-written recipes, and one of them was for her beans. I still cherish them and think of her every time I pull them out and see her handwriting on the cards.
So making food for our kids and their friends and their amazing teachers at Mount Hope seems a small way not only to feed them and love them. It also gives a thankful nod to every loving Lutheran cook and baker who’s ever brought a hot dish or a pie to a potluck or to our doors.
At our first Advent dinner in 2018, we ladies met up at school in the gym, which doubles as a lunchroom, with our haul. Athena had thought to bring festive tablecloths and napkins, and our younger kids and another mom helped set the tables. I’d made Lydia’s beans, plus some mashed potatoes and a beloved yeast roll recipe of my mom’s that reminded me of the Kentucky lunch ladies. Lisa brought a monster load of cut-up fruit and a platter of raw veggies, and she prepped other sides. We’d timed all the baking down to the minute, prayed with Athena that her turkeys would be cooked through but not dry, set aside the few rolls that fell off the tray into asphalt when they spilled off of a tilted tray when I opened the van door, and lined all the food along the counter in a sequence we thought would be best. We were excited and a little bit nervous—would everything go smoothly?
The teachers and students came in silently, as usual, and when all the classes had arrived, we all prayed together. Then the kids lined up at the window, and we learned fast why lots of hands are useful. The kids had options—turkey, dark or white, or chicken nuggets or both? Gravy? Macaroni and cheese? Veggies? We quickly moved to one person placing bread and some veggies on each plate, with two of us filling plates for individual students per their requests, instead of each of us asking the same kid different questions. The students were overwhelmed with the choices, most of them quietly delighted with the food. The nuggets and mac were highly popular, as were the rolls. But the beans started going and were gone before I knew it—the potatoes, too. Lydia and Grandma would have been delighted.
Just when we thought we wouldn’t be able to keep up, the line was finished. We filled our own plates and sat in the lunchroom with our children, sopping up messes with our paper napkins, relaxing in the happy din of a shared meal.
People in our culture are often overwhelmed by the thought of hosting a party or preparing large quantities of food for others. And yet homes built for “entertaining,” lavish television shows and ubiquitous media dedicated to food and sharing it surround us. We all want a shared table and are so often afraid to try to make one. In those times and places where I have felt most loved around a table, the material evidences of such love are simple: hot food, offered frequently, with loved ones. That’s it. Well-chosen decorations are icing on the cake. The real value lies in the sharing itself.
At that first dinner, while we tried to give the teachers and students something special, there was nothing particularly fantastic about our meal. Rather, we wanted to give them those simple ingredients of what we have so loved about eating with friends at school and other places: hot food and togetherness. My favorite part of our Advent dinner was seeing the kids’ faces at the window. It was visceral—my hands covered in plastic gloves, placing beans dripping from a spoon or gooey macaroni on their plates, their hands taking their plates, splooshing ketchup next to their nuggets.
This year at the Easter brunch, some details were different. A few hours before lunchtime, moms took over the gym kitchen and cooked four pounds of bacon, four pounds of sausage, scrambled twelve dozen eggs, and baked hashbrown patties. Other moms prepared three types of fresh fruit for easy serving, while another brought in hard-boiled eggs. Some poured orange juice and milk to prep. I’d made mom’s bread recipe again, but with a sweet twist: they became cinnamon rolls. Unlike the first school meal, I didn’t drop any as I carried them between a gaggle of toddlers from the van into the kitchen. Other moms made gluten-and-dairy-free bars and sweets, too.
We lunch ladies have done this enough in these last years that we’re not as nervous, and the process goes fairly smoothly. We didn’t have decorations this year, but we had plenty of food, but not too many leftovers—the perfect balance. We realized we needed to tweak our serving setup to move the line faster. Cleanup, on the other hand, was a breeze. And we had around five moms prepping and serving, with others buying and delivering food—many hands making light work. Other details remained the same as at other dinners and brunches. The most important was that the students were delighted. When I asked one student if he wanted a cinnamon roll, he said, “Heck ya!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Other students gushed about how good everything was, and others spoke their praise by coming back for seconds and even thirds. We had more gloved hands spooning and dishing and handing, and smaller ones pointing and balancing full plates.
There are countless reasons why I love Mount Hope, and I will write about more of them in the future, but a big one is that it is a family. Teachers give abundantly of themselves to our whole family and to the other students and their families, and vice versa. We share laughter and tears, countless planning and learning and striving. We share services in the Chapel, partaking of our Lord together, and we share meals in the gym. All of this is more priceless than I can express.
During the days Christ walked on this earth after His resurrection, I can’t imagine how often and how ardently His disciples and His family touched Him, marveling that He was alive, and barely beginning to comprehend how His defeat of death meant a defeat of death for them, too. We are the same today. We read about how Jesus ate a breakfast of fish on the beach with His disciples, and He would opened His hand to them, and He fed them, just as He feeds us. What a great and awesome wonder is this. It is no accident that our Lord promised a foretaste of the eternal feast to come for us, as we meet together with Him at Holy Communion. Indeed, taste and see that the Lord is good. May we, with our redeemed hands, continue to have the privilege of serving and loving our neighbors at our tables, at home, at school, and many other places.
Portions of this were published in “Loving Lunch, Loving School” in 2019.
Had to smile and wipe a tear about Lydia sharing her recipes with Jon.
Loved it all, Em. I always do. I could sure use one of those cinnamon rolls right about now. 😘