Tomorrow, my daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, will be moving from Farmingdale, right around the corner from us, to South Portland, about an hour or so away. While my husband and I will really miss having them close by, it will be so good for them to be minutes rather than an hour away from work. Even though their new apartment is more expensive than the one they are leaving, Shannon and Mike will save so much money on gas that they will actually come out ahead.

Today will be another one of those “flurry of cooking” days. I’ll be making food for the first official meal in the new apartment. On the docket for today’s cooking are brownies, bread, and macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish, the latter of which can be popped in the oven when we are ready to eat.

In fact, we’ve already had informal meals—chili and pizza—at the new apartment. We set up camp chairs in the dining room and used a cooler for a little table. This cozy arrangement reminded me of another move, long ago, when I was eight years old, and my family moved from a tiny ranch in Waterville, Maine, to a big farmhouse in neighboring North Vassalboro.

One afternoon, my father’s brother, Leo, and his wife, Barney—Bernadette, but no one ever called her that—and their two daughters, Linda and Carol, helped my parents clean the new farmhouse and get ready for the move. After the cleaning was done, we all sat on the bright yellow floor in the kitchen as we ate our meal. I can’t remember what the meal was, and, as astonishing as this might sound coming from a foodie, I’m not sure it really mattered.

I remember my mother saying, “How funny we must look, sitting on the floor like this.”

And we all laughed. I suppose we did look funny. But what a feeling of camaraderie, of accomplishment, of helping. We would have, of course, done the same thing for my aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Sometimes, the memories of shared meals are just as important as the actual food.