LETTERS FROM HOME: LIFE IS A BANQUET; DON'T EAT THE TURKEY LOAF

April 26, 2001

Dear Ken,

Spring is the season for banquets. If you haven't been to one yet, you will. Students are getting awards and graduating. It's all very uplifting and hopeful and high-minded. Usually the hardest thing to stomach is the food.

At age 50 and on a diet, I have divided the world into good food and bad food.

Good food tastes good and has few calories. Good food is hard to find, especially at a banquet.

Less good food has few calories but tastes bad.

On a diet, it is nominally better than foot that tastes good but has many calories.

Some food both tastes bad and is loaded with calories. This food seems to make exclusive appearances at banquets.

Last weekend, DC and I attended the banquet for the graduating seniors in her department at Southern Illinois University. Faculty members and staffers congregated at two tables near the front of the room, stiffly wearing the provided Mardi Gras beads and not talking about work. The seniors and their boyfriends knocked back Budweisers at the surrounding tables and wisecracked as classmates came forward to receive an honor.

The student organizers bestowed on each classmate a goof certificate, such as Most Likely to be Hit on by a Patient, Most Likely to Have an Empty the Nitrous Oxide Tank.

One student said the biggest question the seniors faced was whether they'd pass DC's class.

The students charmed us, each preparing to venture into the world of dental hygiene with shining smiles and a determination to fight injustice and plaque.

We like these graduation banquets. It is exciting to see kids setting off into adulthood. I especially like the banquet for the theater students at the university. As you might expect, somebody usually gets emotional and apologizes needlessly.

There is little to choose between a Southern Illinois banquet and a Southeast Missouri banquet. This one offered a choice of shredded roast beef in a dire-looking sauce or multi-hued turkey loaf, cheesy potatoes, salad and a roll. Even for a buffet, it lacked integrity.

It seems to me this joyous time is not a time for innocuous food. This is a time to feast.

Otherwise the message is to settle for a turkey-loaf life, a warmed over buffet where the choices are safe, the possibilities are limited. Love and attention needs to be paid to the preparation.

Let's wish the graduates lives of peace and grace with saffron rice and salmon in a mango sauce.

Let's wish them a life flavored with curry and chutney and basil and coriander, surprised by Godiva chocolates and heaped with honey and tart Key lime pie.

The recipe calls for love and comfort, passion and sensuousness, creativity and adventure -- the feeling from one moment to the next that you've never tasted anything so wonderful.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.