Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart
October 31st, 2025
Photo: Isabel Margengo
Writer: Sienna Polaski
Editor: Penny Walke
After a lingering farewell from summer, autumn had arrived in Ann Arbor on an unsuspecting weekday. I could sense the familiar briskness of October nipping at the cuffs of my sweater as a breath of air picked up the amber leaves coating the sidewalk. They rose quietly for a brief flight across a backdrop of still blue sky. I pulled open the door to my sorority house as the cool air drifted past the threshold and dissipated in the warmth of the entry. In the dining room, everyone gathered around today’s menu– warm tomato bisque of the perfect saffron color, dotted with savory seasonings and herbs. With coats and cardigans draped over the backs of chairs, girls sat down together to enjoy the meal just right for the first fall day.
As we were discussing our days around the table, our house chef emerged from the kitchen, inquiring about how lunch had turned out. He excitedly shared that the recipe had been handed down to him by his great-great-grandmother. The dining room chatter quieted as we all turned our attention to his story, enamored by his heartfelt recollection of a family tradition.
It struck me how enduring and meaningful this gift was. It had escaped the corrosion of time to appear in this house, still touching the hearts of, essentially, strangers after all its years. In a room of people, each with their unique upbringing, everyone’s faces bore the softness of understanding as we listened, envisioning our own homes and families somewhere else in the world. Girls smiled as they told similar stories of their family recipes prepared by someone special to them. I thought of Christmas Eve dinner at my grandparents’ and pictured my little cousins accidentally dipping their elbows in the prime rib as they reached over the table of my grandma’s cooking. Usually, home felt far away, but today, our anecdotes warmed the room even as the frosty breeze tapped on the windowpanes outside.
Our chef, nodding along to the happy memories of home-cooked meals, shared his testimony to the meaningfulness of food. He earnestly clasped his hands together and said, “If you execute it right, you get to see the smiles on people’s faces.” No one disagreed, not with our warm lunch finished and the feeling of home much closer than before.
As I shared a simple meal on the first day of a new season, I was reminded that community was always what mattered most to me. And all because of Chef’s great-great-grandmother’s recipe, I had come to realize that I had this value in common with each girl sitting beside me, both old and new friends. One shared recipe had uncovered a greater sense of connection and belonging in our house that hadn’t existed before. From the birdseye view of our dining room, it may have appeared that we were just talking about lunch. However, in a more profound sense, we were sharing how we had become the people sitting in that room. It turns out that on that first day of fall, everyone sat down beside each other with an empty stomach and a hungry heart, and when we got up from the table together, we were much, much fuller.
