With the festivities of Christmas on the horizon, this is an apt time to reflect on the significance of sharing a meal. While we need nutrients to keep our bodies healthy and strong, meals consist of far more than food and drink.

A couple of years ago I was with friends in a restaurant in Toronto. At the table next to ours a rather “affluent-looking” group of young men and women were gathered for dinner. As their meal arrived they all made the sign of the cross and proceeded to share a most beautiful and moving grace before meals.

A new Canadian species of fruit has shown up in our Farmers Market last summer—haskap berries. Haskap is the Japanese name of the Ainu people of Northern Japan for fruit meaning “berry of long life and good vision.”