Casseroles-intro

The fragrance of vintage cuisine filled her nostrils and made the lead ball inside her stomach double in weight. The rest of the procession had arrived. There is something about death that signals a sudden dire need for casseroles to your fellow parishioners, mainly the elderly and devout church ladies who bustle about with their purses chock full of coffee drops and smelling of slightly stale perfume. Sarah imagined each of them meticulously preparing their dishes in a cozy, cluttered kitchen, following a sacred recipe memorized years ago when high schools still offered Home Economics as "A necessary subject for young ladies," directly from the the only book held in equal regards to the Bible, the original Betty Crocker Cook Book. She tried to muster some appreciation for the women's effort but could not help feeling it was in vain. You see, no matter how much care you put into it, tuna and pasta that is smothered in cheese and condensed soup, and baked for hours (*until a light brown crust has formed and the soup is bubbling) cannot embed life back into a limp corpse. Death is the ultimate permanent. Not even Campbell's Cream of Mushroom can persuade it to undo it's deeds.