When someone you know is caring for a new baby, recovering from surgery or an accident, suffering from a death in the family, preparing for moving day, experiencing a financial hardship, or consumed with tending to a sick child, you might want to ease your friend’s burden by gifting him or her with a meal.
Doing so can be just what the doctor ordered, and not just because the food provides for their physical needs.
Your meal, planned with care, made with love, and hand-delivered at a time when your friend is in the midst of stress, change, pain, or uncertainty, is an emotional salve of friendship more healing than most prescription drugs.
Before loading the car with your goodies, there are a few things you should know. Problems and disappointments arise and feelings can be hurt when the person making the food and the person receiving the food have differing expectations.
So what are your best choices?
- Costco vs. homemade?
- A three-course meal vs. a single entrée?
- Haute cuisine vs. always reliable and tasty-if maybe boring-chicken casserole?
Oh, the questions! Oh, the possibilities for your potential good deed to go undone.
The solution? A common list of expectations.
Follow the savvy, sincere, and simple tips below, and when you volunteer to prepare a meal you’ll know the full extent of your obligation. Also when you’re on the receiving end of the meal, you’ll know what’s coming your way and what additional plans you might need or want to make.
Add these tips to your repertoire and the only thing that will be remembered and appreciated longer than your meal is the love and friendship that you so obviously put into creating it!
1.What time? Ask your friend what she prefers. Usually, dropping food off piping hot from the oven just in time for dinner is the best, even if it cools off a little in the car on the ride over and needs to spend a minute or two reheating in the microwave.
