Food Lovers Unite

Today at work I met with a client who had some questions about his pending case. Many of the people we help, such as this particular man, are in such sad mental and physical states, sometimes such dire, even literal life and death situations, that most of the time I find it difficult to relate to them at even the most basic level. But today something amazing happened.

The client brought in a stack of documents, mostly medical records, with him to our meeting that he wanted to go over and discuss with me. As he worked his way through the pile, there was a colorful page that stuck out. It looked like a page from a magazine.

“Oh, this isn't supposed to be in here,” he explained, picking up the page. “See, I cut out this recipe for caramel nut bars and it got mixed in with all the rest.” Suddenly his rather sad demeanor began to lighten, and I noticed he had a glimmer of happiness in his eyes, a slight smile on his lips. I felt one on mine too.

Against my best judgment as the diligent attorney I strive to be, I suddenly perked up and leaned in to take a closer look at the picture. Instead of narrowing in on the more relevant records he brought in to discuss, I found myself more attentive to the contents of this particular page. Being the freak that I am, I detected the recipe’s publication from its font in one second flat.

"This is from Sunset magazine, isn't it?" I inquired. I couldn't quite see her from my peripheral view, but I'm pretty sure the legal assistant sitting next to me rolled her eyes at my question.

"Well, I'm not sure," he said. "You know what, I think it is. I got it from a magazine at the library." I restrained myself from lecturing him about ripping pages from library materials, but more than anything, I found myself utterly surprised by this entire interaction. I couldn’t imagine a less likely person to have any interest in baking, let alone carry around a recipe for caramel nut bars from Sunset.

"Those look really good," I replied, the glossy picture scratching me right where I itched. It was about 3:00 pm, and I could really use one of those bars about now, I thought.

Focus, Allison, focus. "So, uh, anyway, let’s talk about your appeal...."

As I carried on with business as usual, I noticed that something felt different. Maybe I couldn’t solve all of this man’s problems (heck, maybe I couldn’t solve any of them), but for a single, sweet moment against all odds, this man and I shared something in common. Something as simple as a ripped out recipe from a library magazine made me realize - hey, we might come from completely different worlds, but maybe we're not so different, you and I. This encounter gave me yet another reason to love food: sometimes it has the power to connect us in strange and wonderful ways.