A shared meal - the purest form of love

There’s something special about being around a table enjoying a meal with friends and family. A shared meal, I think, is one of the purest forms of love.?

I couldn’t decide what I wanted to blog about this week but then as I was sitting at dinner at my sorority house, I thought about how much I love sitting around these tables with good friends each night and knew I had to write about it.

Something I love about my sorority is how we do our meals. Instead of a window of time that we can come and get our dinner, we all sit down together at 5:30. My friends and I always sit at the same table in the corner and pull up as many chairs as we can fit around it. We talk about our days and each take turns saying our “rose, bud, thorns” and usually end up laughing so loud our beloved chef, Chef Mark, comes over to tell us to “behave”.

Speaking of Chef Mark, I couldn’t talk about meals without giving him the biggest shoutout. The man, the myth, the legend – he is the best and keeps us all so well fed and makes each of us feel cared for.

One of the many things I will miss about college is all the shared meals. It’s pretty rare to live within walking distance of all your friends and operate on the same general schedule. Even on the busiest days of class and work I know that when 5:30 rolls around, the corner table will be full.

Whether it’s dinner at the sorority house, a Wednesday afternoon lunch, my roommates and I’s weekly “Soup Sunday” tradition, family dinner after being away at school for months, brunch after church, or a dinner party – a shared meal is so special to me. Nothing beats lingering around a table well after you’re finished eating, talking and laughing and enjoying being with people you love.?