On Food.

Last summer I put together a list of foods I knew how to cook. It included pasta and broiled chicken (Not even a rub, just garlic and paprika)—and garlic bread. Nothing very extravagant. During the first date night of the year, I’m sure Andrew was thinking, “Awesome, she’s off the meal plan and all we’re going to eat together this year are carbs, carbs, carbs.” Early in the fall, however, we decided to do weekly date nights and my house decided to do weekly house dinners. Andrew and I did not usually have much time together for meals and talking during the school week, so Friday nights were wonderful breaks from school and work. Weekly date night meant a weekly culinary experiment.

As a result, I can cook! I’m not exactly a culinary genius, but I have grown to love making food (as opposed to just eating it). I experimented with different varieties of food, from chicken parmesan to chicken sezchuan to homemade fajitas. I do not eat beef or pork, which limits my cooking. Over the last year, I’ve realized that I love to cook. I’m not great at baking, it’s much too exact. With cooking, you can just add a little more salt or a little more sauce and the food will taste good. Baking is a mystery. If you mess up one ingredient, your cookies will not rise or they will spread out and make one big cookie. It’s high stress. I live with a group of girls I know from college, and for our dessert party I made boxed lemon bars and a frozen peanut butter pie. Not one, but two no brainers!

This summer I am reading “Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way” by Shauna Niequist. It’s a series of short stories, one of which was about cooking for her friends. She says, “sometimes the most spiritual things we do are the most physical, the most tactile. Feeding people is one of those things, whether we’re helping to feed hungry people, or feeding the hunger in each one of us on these dark and heavy [summer] nights” (p. 74). Weekly date nights and dinners with my housemates have made me realize that I love to make food for people. I love knowing how to do something that will bring people together. I love preparations and even though I’m always nervous that there won’t be enough food-- it never matters because by the time you get to the table, the food’s already made! The food may have brought everyone together, but all that’s left is the fellowship.

…so there’s my 2012 blog post for the summer.