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" When our neighbor Julia heard about my husband&amp;#039;s bike accident last summer, she made us an offer we couldn&amp;#039;t refuse: &amp;quot;Let me bring dinner over tonight,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always found meat loaf and pickled beets to be very healing.&amp;quot;   She was right (and the meal she brought over was tasty indeed, especially those beets). Her act of culinary generosity was just one of an array of kindnesses showered upon us during the six weeks when my husband was on crutches. Though we appreciated the phone calls, visits and cards, it was the food that meant the most to us. In one sense those meals weren&amp;#039;t necessary\u2014Bob was the one who was incapacitated, not me, and I was perfectly capable of putting together a meal. But those dishes carried more than nutrition; they carried comfort.   Maybe it&amp;#039;s a Midwestern thing, but in Iowa, where we live, casseroles follow crises as surely as summer follows spring. Surgeries, chemotherapy and deaths in the family prompt friends and family to get busy in the kitchen, for food is the most basic and elemental of gifts, a reminder of our need for nourishment even when our hearts are aching and our bodies broken.   During those weeks when Bob was healing, I began to understand that something deeper was at work, something I hadn&amp;#039;t realized when I was on the other side of the culinary equation, making dishes for others: When you have a medical crisis of some sort, you fall out of the boat that is your normal life. You&amp;#039;re suddenly at sea in an unfamiliar milieu of hospital rooms, doctors, nurses and assorted medical apparatus. Even after you return home, your daily routines are altered. And so when friends call, stop by or bring those casseroles, it&amp;#039;s as if they&amp;#039;re throwing you a life preserver and hauling you back into the boat. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t worry, we&amp;#039;ve got you!&amp;quot; they call as they pull in the line. &amp;quot;Just hang on and everything&amp;#039;s going to be fine.&amp;quot;   That lifeline of food reconnected us to our larger community in unexpected and welcome ways. We hadn&amp;#039;t seen our friends Carolyn, Cyndee and Dennett for far too long, for example, and when they dropped off meals we ended up spending hours discussing kids, jobs and future plans, slowly reweaving friendships that in our busyness we had neglected.   Those meals also helped ease the stress of my new daily routine, as I found myself suddenly in charge of doing far more around the house. On our own we would have had a lot of takeout pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches, but thanks to the food angels, we enjoyed delectable meals like Jan&amp;#039;s barbecued beef, Brenda&amp;#039;s lasagna, and souvlaki from Julia (who graced us with several meals, bless her generous heart). With Bob&amp;#039;s leg up on a chair, we would eat in the living room over TV trays, beginning each meal with a toast to the ones who&amp;#039;d prepared it.   We&amp;#039;re fortunate in that Bob&amp;#039;s medical misadventure was relatively minor and our lives returned to normal after a month and a half. But his recovery period gave us a deeper empathy for those who must deal with sickness for many months or years. We now realize that the line that separates health from disability is razor-thin, and that those who deal with chronic illness need a steady stream of friends bearing food and good cheer, not just a one-time delivery.   Given our experiences, I&amp;#039;ve vowed to try to do things differently from now on. Though in the past I&amp;#039;ve made meals for friends in need, too often I decided that I was busy and that someone else would likely step forward to help. Now I&amp;#039;m going to be less inclined to just make a phone call and more willing to get out a casserole pan. I want to keep in mind Cyndee&amp;#039;s trick of delivering a slow cooker, filled with chicken and ingredients, ready to be plugged in. And I&amp;#039;ll remember that sometimes people going through hard times want both food and company, while sometimes just a pot of chili and a quick hug are enough.   I&amp;#039;ll do all this because I&amp;#039;ve learned the truth of our neighbor Julia&amp;#039;s words: If made by people who care about you, pickled beets do indeed have amazing powers of healing.\uF020   Lori Erickson is a freelance writer and creator of the blog The Holy Rover, where she writes about topics relating to travel and spirituality.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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