Beef Burgundy
Channel: Kyle Oliver
Date: 2015-09-01

A story about Christian formation in action through friendship, food, and God's precious gift of time. Part of the St. Francis House 100th Anniversary Storytelling Event.

Approximate transcript:

It's Saturday night in a crowded Madison kitchen, and some peculiar things are about to happen. Don’t worry, it’s mostly wholesome.

This particular kitchen is in the basement of St. Francis House, and I’ve come to participate for the first time in what for residents of the house is a rare but ritualized treat. We're making beef burgundy, the really fancy kind.

My future housemate Colette is sort of the ringleader. She’s orchestrating the early steps. I’m surprised to learn that one of them is to cook the little beef cubes in the fat from browning two whole pounds of bacon. So I should clarify that it’s the fellowship this evening that will be wholesome, maybe less so the food on the menu.

My friend Kristie is here as well, who in a little over a year will be living in New York and going by Kristin. Also, significantly, a couple years later she and I will get married down the street at St. Andrew’s, with many of tonight’s participants in attendance. 

Among Kristin’s roles is to queue up music from the movie Sister Act. Because it is definitely time for an impromptu singalong. Kristin may also be helping to apportion the wine, some of which enriches the stew in progress, the rest of which is shared throughout the night.

A big part of why this is my first time enacting this most holy St. Francis House ritual is that, if I’m honest, I’ve held this place at arm’s length outside of official events. Consider this, we’re, like, an hour in at this point, and all we’ve done is get the ingredients in a pot. It will take another hour plus for them to simmer and luxuriously reduce. I’m nuclear engineering student with what I’ve now come to call suburban overachiever syndrome. And that means I’m still not very good at taking my time.

Before I bring this story in for a landing, I should mention that at some point we fish around for matches, because an honest-to-God step in this recipe  is to put brandy in the pot and light the whole thing on fire. It goes off without a hitch, and as far as I know has nothing to do with the metaphor, but you can’t tell the story of cooking this particular dish without mentioning the flaming brandy.

OK, to the metaphor: what this evening teaches me, what this community has taught me, is that sometimes you have to go all in for something that doesn’t seem to matter. Sometimes, to quote a phrase I will learn in a few months later on retreat, sometimes, you have to waste time with the Lord. And with the people who matter most to you.

As we finally break bread somewhere approaching the three hour mark, it hits me that there is no place I’d rather be. I realize this is not  one of those times where I’m right in thinking that I really should have been studying. I realize that in this kitchen, as much as upstairs in the chapel, I’ve learned something essential about the words we hear: let us keep the feast.

It’s a lesson I’m still learning here in 2015, but at least I’ve got a better idea of how to do it, and with whom.