Symbiosis

If I’m enthralled with bookstores, my significant other has a grocery store fascination. Unlike some husbands, he enjoys shopping and will agreeably spend hours in the aisles, comparing prices with or without the application of coupons, checking point of origin and size of cans. When he’s feeling low because the Packers have failed him again, we can perk him up with a trip to the grocery store.

Our family stories are twined with where we found the dinner entrée or the dessert; our road trips involve unique grocery stores and small town specialty markets. Where did we find the beef sticks? Which dairy produced that cheese?

All this creates another marvelously symbiotic part of our relationship. I don’t need to plan ahead, or even act responsibly. When I discover that I’m 10 eggs short because I’ve suddenly decided that today is the day to bake fruitcake, he will putdown the tv remote and head off to the store for a dozen (Phil’s cage free. Laid in nests). If the boys are coming to work on a building project and have lunch, he will get their favorite hot dogs (Usinger’s, all meat, ¼# each) before we assemble the cedar or the tools.

This is Wisconsin-Minnesota. We build celebrations and relationships at the table: eating, sharing stories. Listening to each other. Food is love, my grandma used to say. Guy and Julie’s visit is friendship and laughter. It is also apricot Hamantaschen, Groppi’s deli salad, marinated olives, and salami-onion-cheese cubes from Sendik’s. It is asparagus wrapped in specially cured bacon and broiled. It is pots of Berres brothers coffee and books and talk. “Try a little of this.” Tina’s visits are Greek foods; Dick and Millie’s, a choice piece of beef; Deone’s sugar cookies with fondant. There are foods for holidays, old recipes and new experiments. Gran was right: food is love. Love is also someone taking time from the middle of a football game to go to the grocery store.