By Peggy Sturdivant

What I love about writing this column is that nine times out of ten what’s underneath the surface facts is a love story. It can be a love story between a neighborhood and a tree, a pet and its owner, a volunteer and a cause, and yes, between humans.

I was invited to a lunch below the original chapel at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in order to meet a few members of their Edible Hope Program. Doug Owens and Elizabeth Denison glow like newlyweds, some sort of quiet, shared radiance. They are going to cook as team, one of two representing Edible Hope in “Bringing in Ballard’s” final event on November 18, 2016.

Sitting next to each other, still in aprons, Denison passed warm biscuits. “Doug made them,” she said. Along with other volunteers they had cooked a lunch with donated ingredients for staff and volunteers, small compared to the 150-some that St. Luke’s serves at breakfast five days a week. I learned the story of Owens and Denison’s courtship belongs to the church as much as it does to them. Local real estate attorney Doug Owens already had a long history volunteering in the church kitchen. When he and Denison were dating he brought her to volunteer in the kitchen as a test of a future relationship.

Both previously widowed they have now been married six years. They cook together at the church at least once a week. Even before dessert was served Doug Owens had replaced the apron over his dress shirt and tie with a black raincoat and hat. He had to get back to his law office.

My thoughts go to another love story, in another kitchen. Bruce and Sara Naftaly co-owned Le Gourmand Restaurant and the adjoining Sambar. They shopped together, walked together, cooked for their son’s school together and worked together for the better part of 27 years. Four years later they are officially partnering again with announced opening of Marmite next to Sara Naftaly’s bakery Amandine on Capitol Hill.

Bruce Naftaly will be cooking solo as another “competitor” in the Bringing in Ballard “Celebrate Harvest” event billed as “Chopped” meets “Iron Chef.” He’ll be using the same ingredients (from a local garden and typical of Ballard Food Bank donations) as two teams from St. Luke’s and another team from Ballard Food Bank.

When Le Gourmand closed in 2012 there was talk of a cookbook, or at least not working most nights. Instead of retiring the Naftaly’s seem to have switched to days, once again collaborating at home in Ballard and up on “Chophouse Row” on Capitol Hill.

I don’t know the other teams yet, although I’ve met Robert Loomis, who has been part of the St. Luke’s community since 2013. He often cooks with 27-year volunteer Nancy Rogers claiming that he just does whatever she tells him to do. He’ll be cooking with Bernadette Walcott.

Each team’s timed preparation will be judged by EatBallard’s Gerard Wirz and Pie Queen Mary Schile, with crowd support by way of voluntary contributions to the Ballard Food Bank or the Edible Hope Program. The yearlong Bringing in Ballard series, funded by the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods grant, wanted to go out big. Fueled in part by a love of cooking shows and testing the ingenuity of chefs using fresh, local produce plus food bank staples (and oddities) the idea of a cooking challenge emerged for the harvest theme.

With typical over exuberance we’re (I’m on the Steering Committee) now planning an event in which we invite the community to be the audience to watch four cooking stations compete using the same ingredients in a timed, judged event. Plus a potluck to follow, music, crafts, a chance to wear your favorite apron outside of the house, and the ability to help feed others over the coming months. As usual another way to show how we love and support the Ballard community, more often than one would think reading on-line comments about homelessness.

Sometimes I have to look for the heartstrings in a story. Not this time. I saw heart the day that I met Doug Owens and Elizabeth Denison as they shared a quick hug in the kitchen. I remember seeing the love as Bruce Naftaly chose heirloom tomatoes from my garden when Sara Naftaly was being treated for breast cancer. He was going to make a ratatouille as though hoping every bite would restore her health quickly.

When I met Elizabeth Denison she was anxious to learn the ingredient for the cooking challenge, fretting that it would be squash. “I don’t know what to do with squash,” she said.

Hah! She’ll know what to do with squash…she’ll cook it with love.

Be part of the “audience” followed by potluck. November 18, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. St. Luke’s, 5710 22nd NW. More details at facebook.com/bringinginballard/ Free admission. Bring a dish to share or a pie to be judged…