On Staten Island, there’s an Italian restaurant called “Enoteca Maria.” Actually, it is only half an Italian restaurant, because the other half of the menu changes daily. The fixed half is Italian, but the rest features different cuisines from around the world. And best of all, these specialty menu offerings are not prepared by professional chefs; they’re cooked by grandmothers. This “international house of grandmothers” is wildly popular. People have to make reservations weeks in advance.
Here’s how it works: Every night a “nonna” (Italian for “grandmother”) from a different country puts together a menu honoring her native cuisine. During a week, you may see food from Sri Lanka, Armenia, the Philippines, Russia, or Japan. Everything’s made fresh and is literally “home-cooked” by a grandmother. There are also one-on-one cooking classes pairing guests alongside these “nonnas.” The beauty of this restaurant is that, whether you are working back in the kitchen and enjoying a meal seated in the restaurant, there is an overall, vibrant exchange of culture, stories and recipes.
I really like several aspects of this creative New York City restaurant. I love the idea of literal grandmothers working side-by-side in the kitchen, preparing home-cooked meals from vastly different cultures. I love the idea of sitting down at a table and finding out I could have lasagna or Japanese gyoza and shrimp dumplings; and that if I came back two days later, I could try Polish food.
We just celebrated Easter a few weeks ago. Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled his prophetic role through death on a cross and then being resurrected from the grave. He is now revered as Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. If we are to appreciate this good news at all, it has to be on Jesus’ terms, not our own. This is not an event we can pick and choose the details we like or the theological assertions we approve of. The Easter resurrection is part of our Christian heritage, codified in the four gospels, delineated through various confessions and creeds, and reaffirmed in annual celebrations and Sunday services in churches the world over. This is not to say that the resurrection is easily understood by our rational minds. It’s not. It is meant to be mysterious, awe-inspiring, troubling-amazing-challenging-comforting all at once.
So how can we best approach the wonder of Easter and the promise of resurrection hope that it announces to the world? There are lots of ways to do this, but without getting too academic or technical, here’s one option: Easter is like a meal served at a restaurant whose menu you didn’t choose, but whose offerings you trust as if they come from a loving grandmother’s kitchen. It is a “letting go” of the normal way of doing things—demanding service from waiters, itemizing precisely what we want to eat, calculating the costs and paying bills down to the necessary pennies—and instead, simply enjoying a meal provided out of love and guaranteed to expand our perspective beyond the limits of our own little cultural setting.
God loves lasagna and pierogis and gyoza. Christ has been raised as Lord of all. Shouldn’t our meals and our lives better reflect this rich, diverse perspective? For of such, is the Kingdom of God.
Randy Bush