Our next guest blogger, Nori Odoi, is a long time friend, all the way back to Simon’s days at Wang Laboratories. She was one of the first people Simon introduced me to and it is she who baked our wedding cake. She has been featured in Yankee Magazine for her baking—including her hamantaschen. After leaving the high tech world, she became a professional baker and caterer, delighting many with her noshes. She is also a published poet so her writing about food and community, is evocative. I can almost taste the cookies! It seems like the perfect post between the food of the shiva minyans and funeral lunch and the celebrations of Simon’s upcoming birthday this weekend. Both sadness and celebration, as Nori points out, involve community and food.

I often bring food to meetings. Sometimes chocolate chip cookies — crisp, melt-in-your-mouth, with pools of still liquid chocolate — or maybe lemon bars — tart lemon curd cradled in butter rich shortbread — or even small squares of flourless chocolate mousse cake — dark, bittersweet, rich with chocolate, naturally without gluten for those who care.   When I open my offerings, people gather around; some gasp as the aroma of fresh baking awakens their senses. Later we may argue about the proper way to solve a problem or disagree about issues, but for a few moments everyone is smiling and nibbling, and sharing the pleasure of food. For a few moments, we are a unified community.

When we join in community, we each bring our samenesses and our differences. A healthy community thrives on both. Our differences enrich each other, create a greater perspective on the world, teach us about other ways of being. They can make a community stronger and more able.

But the word community derives from “common” — it is our samenesses which joins us. And one of the most basic things we humans share is our bond with food. We need it to survive — we all know the pain of hunger. But we also know the pleasure of filling that hunger.   In fact, satisfying our hunger has been made into an art form, an entertainment we can enjoy together.

Throughout history, communities come together over food, to celebrate, to grieve, to join one another. And as we eat together, we acknowledge both our common vulnerability and our common strength. In giving food to each other we can express love and caring in a wordless yet profound way.

Our holiday foods are more than just sustenance. They have history that go back to our roots. Often recipes survive from those who have left us. In my family, it is traditional to have 24-hour salad, a fruit salad that requires creating a lemon custard and peeling numerous grapes. It was a recipe that my Aunt Sue always made for us, but now she has passed on. When we eat this, we feel her here in spirit, and our hearts are warmed with memories of her. She is still part of our community.

So in this time of reflection, of coming together, I wish you foods that sustain you and give you hope, foods that tell stories of the past and speak of the future, foods that join your spirits in joy and love, foods that bind you ever to the human community.

— Nori Odoi