World Race and cooking.
This mission trip has really given me an opportunity to refine a vital life skill and use it to serve my teammates as well as serve as a creative outlet! Aside from my chopping abilities, which Talia broke the news to me about, which was that I was terribly slow, especially with cabbage (it was a fair assessment) – I’ve found a niche in doing a handful of dishes! I have to owe the viability of the Jamaican Coconut Chicken with Rice dish to a recipe for fish called the Jamaican Run Down that my old high school buddy Gary Yao sent me. Shout out to him! It’s served as a group dish at two women’s retreats, each with participants numbering over fifteen people – at a dinner my first team hosted, as well as for other occasions. Praise to Jesus that it worked out well! As the call for impromptu stir frys came up, I’ve also honed in on being able to better discern the proper amounts of seasoning for variations of a chicken and vegetable rice dish! It is accurate 90 % of the time! Knock on wood! Finally in the country of Georgia, I decided I wanted to try a non-Soy Sauce based Garlic Cashew Chicken with Rice dish, tried it and it’s been my favorite! It’s hearty, healthy and multi-textured! Amazing how effective Sesame Oil is to make a dish seem Asian! It’s just been so fun to be able to cook for people, and I’ve been able to discern portion sizes with more accuracy! I miss my Shun knife and Victorinox chef’s knife at home but I’ve been appreciating the different kitchenware offerings at the many Airbnb’s we’ve stayed in! Much praise was given whenever there was an actual sharpened knife. I’d enjoyed delving into Julia Child’s cookbook for French cooking and varied European dishes back at home, such as doing risottos – but I have realized that I do treat rice dishes as a comfort food due to my childhood, which I realize is probably why they’ve been my natural go-to even to experiment around with on the World Race. Anyhow, the process of cooking has been edifying in multiple ways – another way is that it facilitates a great space for community time during meal prep as well as when the finished product is actually served at the table. I’ve enjoyed hearing about my teammates’ lives back home through the lense of understanding how they cooked for their friends and family, and how each family cherished time around the table. This would be a whole different conversation, but the importance of the table was so highlighted in the Bible by the New Testament’s emphasis on the banquet table for the redeemed as well as in numerous places spanning back to Elijah being cooked a meal by an angel for replenishment in the Old Testament – and finally when the resurrected Jesus cooked breakfast for his disciples. It’s been a journey for me with cooking on the World Race, I’ve valued every bit of it!
