The most important ingredient

I love cooking … NOW.  I haven’t always loved cooking.  I could burn water!  OK, so maybe not literally but I always seemed to screw up whatever I attempted to cook no matter how closely I followed the recipe.  Sure, there were moments of fun - making a plethora of apple pies with my mom and Grandma every fall from apples off the tree in our backyard, helping my dad make our bag lunches, watching as numerous Portuguese dishes were plated and served for one of our family’s birthday gatherings - but for the most part, cooking was just too much like work.  Then something happened.

I went to Bible college.  I lived in the dorms and was expected to eat in the cafeteria.  What???  No more of Mom’s cooking on a daily basis?!  Talk about traumatic!  But I approached it as a new adventure and looked forward to expanding my palate.

That didn’t go so well.  All my fellow alumni and former professors will have to forgive me but it was among the worst food I had ever eaten.  We used to sing songs about how bad the food was: “***** had me bound but Exlax set me free …”  I soon learned which restaurants in town had the best deals on which nights but that only lasted so long.  I wasn’t earning an income and my savings was rapidly depleted.  So I had to get creative.  I went to the local library, talked to friends and even looked through one of my mom’s unused cookbooks for foods that I could somehow create with either a toaster or an electric  kettle in my dorm room.  But you can only eat so many rice cakes with peanut butter or cups of soup.  I got desperate.

One day one of my room mates announced that her aunt who lived locally was going away for a while and we were welcome to hang out at her home.  She had a stove and a microwave, items I had no access to in my dorm.  On one of my weekends home, I took my mom’s cookbook and snuck it into my suitcase.  (What was I thinking “sneaking” it?  She never used it so she never even noticed it was missing!)  A few nights later when my room mate and some of our friends were hanging out at her aunt’s, we thought that perhaps cooking our own meals there might be fun.  “I’ll cook the main course!” I said.  So everyone pitched in $5 and off to the grocery store I went.  I made fettuccine alfredo with some diced chicken in it for about 8 people, another room mate made a Caesar salad, I mixed up some homemade garlic butter and spread it on a French loaf.  Much to my shock, it was a hit and there were leftovers!!  I hadn’t screwed it up!  The food was actually good!  Oh, cooking for an appreciative audience can be so inspiring!  And so my cooking journey began.

If I could start off by making one suggestion, I would say COOK WITH LOVE.  Sounds cliché, I know, but it’s true.  It is probably the most important of all ingredients, listed or not listed, in any recipe.  Cook with the love you feel for the people you’re feeding.  You’re nourishing their bodies so that they can face their daily battles and challenges.  You’re energizing their brains so they can think clearly and make sound decisions.  When I first got married, I would get up early in the morning before the kids so that I could make their lunches in peace.  I wasn’t a morning person so it was a struggle.  I had to find a way to make this easier.  And then it came to me - pray.  As I made each sandwich, washed each apple, wrote each one a note on their napkins, I prayed for their day, their lives, their hearts.  I added love.

So, too, I blog with love!