3 minute read
First, I am sure you are asking yourself “what are casserole friends?”
This is something that I came up with when my mom was sick in 2024. I was chatting with the folks in Accountability Club I think –bless them for the support they gave me in my grief– or maybe my S-I-L, and I was trying to capture the weird essence of Not Ladylike. The core behind the foundation, as it were.
Casseroles.
Secondly, some of you may be asking “what is a casserole?” so I guess my answer to “what are Casserole Friends?” has to provide more context.
A casserole is a one-dish meal that’s slow baked in an oven and served from a sturdy baking dish that’s itself known as a casserole.
-The Food Network
In these modern times, and for this purpose, a “casserole” can mean any large preparation of food –savory, sweet, snack, main course– that someone can put in their freezer or eat immediately, which alleviates the need for them to cook something in a moment where it feels impossible to cook something.
“Casserole Friends” are the people that will fill up your freezer when you are at your lowest, often without being asked, even if they aren’t your “BFF” or your mother.
Now I might have dreamt this, or read it in a Substack, but I remember someone telling me me that when she was having a rough go, a person from a group they belonged to that:
- she had nothing in common with outside of this group
- she was not friends with outside of this group
- she wasn’t necessarily “close” to within the group
brought her prepared food when she was going through a rough time. An acquaintance supported her in her time of need because that’s just what you do.
For a certain set of the population, this is common practice in their group or was modeled to them growing up. I honestly can’t remember if my mom took casseroles to her friends, but she did make a lot of casseroles. It was the 80s afterall.
I do have a core memory of stopping to help a family who was having car troubles late at night. We gave them a blanket from our trunk so they could keep warm while they waited for help. This was in the era before cell phones, so you couldn’t just call a tow. But it was also in the era when people kept their porch lights on and you could knock and ask to use their phone. And you would stop to chat with a car full of strangers, to offer whatever aid you had available. Even if it was just a blanket. Wild.
“Mutual aid is about creating networks in your community to support each other. It isn’t charity. It isn’t politics. It is people supporting each other with what they need.”
Hannah Sung
I’m at the point in my learning/unlearning journey where I am watching for the nuance in the traditional understanding (or practice) of mutual aid, and how it has become political in our current society. It pushes back against the “rugged individualism” that is encouraged by Empire, but it has also become highly organized and a form of charity.
Mutual aid is meant to be a collective effort that helps everyone involved. It can be organic, but it can also be organized based on current needs and ability to provide. It can look like a Meal Train for the new parents, or a freezer filled with casseroles for the grieving family. It might also look like setting up a wagon full of snacks and mittens in a park in the winter.
A CASSEROLE FRIEND COMMUNITY?
We already know that Not Ladylike Community was focused on building connections between strangers, and offering ongoing opportunities for those connections to strengthen.
But my ultimate goal is to create a network of pals, friends, acquaintances, members who support each other when the sh*t hits the fan.
Now that NLL is *technically* gone, I will have to find other ways to do this. Less organized perhaps, but I think there is some merit to that. We don’t have to belong to a society or a formal group to do good in the world and in our communities.
I have been reading a lot lately about what it takes to build community, strengthen bonds, explore connections with strangers (with curiosity and openness and trust). Taking the messy bits about being human, the hard stuff, and turning it into our greatest strength.
There is a large gulf between truning the reading into doing, but that’s my next focus, I promise! I have already started inviting people over every couple of weeks for a simple dinner in my home, paying my “party tax”. I’m talking to my neighbours in the street, and exploring what it looks like to take that to the next level. Cookies on their doorstep? A group text? A block party?
For now, I think I’ll stay close to the relationships I’ve already built. Expanding my network feels impossible some days, let alone nurturing and expanding those relationships. It takes time and care, and it’s extra hard when everyone is so busy (or “busy”) and the effort falls to fewer and fewer people.
This post goes live just after Canadian Thanksgiving. Next Sunday I’ll be making a mac & cheese casserole for my Casserole Friends, and trying to find the words to express the extent of my gratitude for them.
RESOURCES AND FURTHER READING
“The Double Shift”, Kathleen Goldstein’s newsletter
The Perils of Social Atrophy (The Ideas Letter)
Who is Not Ladylike? (e-news, August 28, 2025)
I learned that “casseroled” is a verb and that is wild, and I’m going to try and use the crap out of this knowledge. Use it in a sentence: “Kids, I casseroled some chicken for dinner tonight!”
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