A Feast of Ideas
(Page 3 of 5)
November / December 2007
by J. Trout Lowen
“My family was great,” she says, but “it was not a very happy childhood” in terms of community acceptance. “When my family brought me home when I was 2, the town had a meeting about ‘we don’t want those people in our town.’ ”
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As a teenager, she moved to Portland, Oregon, to live with her older sister and tried to integrate herself into the black community, only to find out that black teens saw her as too white. “I was never an ‘us,’ always a ‘them,’” she says.
At 17 she left Oregon with five dollars in her pocket and a deep sense of alienation. She was determined that her life would be different. “I decided I’d never felt welcomed anywhere, so I was always going to make room at my table. For anybody who came and behaved civilly, there would always be a space. We’d just keep adding cups of water to the soup and more chairs to the table.”
She embarked on a career in publicity that eventually brought her to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where in 2000 she met Goldstein, a freelance journalist who had grown up in Ohio and worked for years in Southeast Asia. Both recently divorced, they bonded over their kids and their shared feeling of isolation. The Twin Cities seemed an insular community, closed to anyone who wasn’t a native-born Minnesotan. It wasn’t long after they moved in together that Schroedl began to reach out to other transplants and to communities of color. Goldstein, who is much less social, was horrified when a New Year’s Day brunch mushroomed into a party for more than 50 people. Although he had asked Schroedl “not to do anything embarrassing,” she couldn’t resist ending the evening on a touchy-feely note. She gave guests candles and asked each of them to share their wishes for the new year.
One by one, they voiced their hopes and dreams as they touched candle to flame. That same sharing ceremony closes each dinner at Marnita’s Table; it is a ritual that Goldstein now embraces.
In 2002 Schroedl and Goldstein were asked to host a meal for the visiting ambassador from Argentina through the Minnesota International Center. It had originally been conceived as a formal sit-down for 12 to 14, but the guest list had mushroomed to 45 by the day before. Schroedl and Goldstein improvised, rearranging the furniture and the menu, replacing linen and china with paper and plastic. They decided to make the event more than just a staid state dinner. Schroedl researched Argentine food and music, while Goldstein put together information on the country’s current political and economic issues.
The Argentine ambassador canceled at the last minute, but the number two official arrived in his stead, and no one seemed to mind. Conversation flowed late into the night as guests savored the food and fellowship.
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