Memorable Meals

I like to cook. Some people, I know, absolutely hate to cook. But I absolutely LOVE to cook. It's not only a necessity but it's a creative thing to do. I follow recipes for baking, but often end up "doing my own thing" when trying to follow a recipe for other things - usually because I find that I don't have all the ingredients called for. I'm not afraid to "dump this in" or "sprinkle some of that on", etc. It USUALLY turns out fine. Today, for instance, was a cool day again, so I was in the mood for chili. I had most of the ingredients on hand, but was missing "cumin" which, for me, gives chili that "chili" flavor mostly. However, today I sprinkled in a couple of new spices and the usual chili powder, but minus cumin - and it turned out great.

My chili slow simmered on the stove all afternoon and the house smelled good. When John came in the door he was happy to smell the chili, too. We both enjoyed it for supper tonight.

As I was stirring that chili this afternoon I thought about other meals we've had over the years. Meals in this country, and in other countries. Meals from our own culture and meals from other cultures. I remembered an article I had written a few years ago for a magazine and went and dug it out. The title is: "Memorable Meals" ... and I will type it up here, or most of it (parts of it was seasonal, and I will leave those parts out).

"Memorable Meals"

My husband, John, once shared in one of his sermons stories of "memorable meals" we've shared with others, in various countries. Some were very elaborate meals - others, quite simple. As simple as one of my homemade- vegetable-soup-and-hot-biscuits meals are. Most of the meals we shared with others were quite delicious. Some were not so tasty.

The food itself, though, is not what makes the meal "memorable". The food is a small part (though a good part!) of the whole. A meal worthy of being remembered is a meal shared with others. A memorable meal is when people gather around a table to eat together. It is shared communication, enjoyment. It can be shared sorrow. It is love.

"Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fatted calf with hatred" (Proverbs 1:17/NIV Study Bible).

We find this to be true wherever we go. Accepting an invitation to sit at the table (or on the ground) and share a meal with someone, no matter how simple or how luxurious, is a key to communication, to understanding, to becoming friends. Barriers are broken down when we share meals with others. Others of another skin color. Others of another culture. Others with different opinions. Accepting one's invitation or extending an invitation for one to sit with us at our table shows our genuine interest in the other person. It shows that we want to take the time to get acquainted. It shows that we care.

We don't need to be wealthy to do this, either. We can serve a full-course meal. Or not. We can serve a bowl-full of shiny red apples with a large pitcher of ice-water. As that verse just said, "a pan of boiled turnips, served with love and caring, is much better than a thick, juicy steak served with hatred and anger" (MY interpretation!).

Accepting to eat with someone else, or having someone eat with us, is accepting and giving hospitality.

"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling" (I Peter 4:9/NIV Study Bible).

Practicing hospitality is a two-way street. I reach out to others, as I share a meal with them. In the same way, they share their lives with me when I accept their meal invitation. Hospitality is not only inviting people we know well - inviting friends and family is fine, but we need to also remember the down-and-out, the dirty and unkempt, the ones who are not so easy to love and bring into our homes.

We need to reach beyond our comfort zones. Through the years we have sat and eaten with the well-off, the well-dressed. And we have sat and eaten at the poorest of tables, sometimes sitting on the ground. Wealthy or poor didn't matter. We still shared hopes, dreams, sorrows, joys - as well as the food.

"Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13/NIV Study Bible).

When we lived in France we sometimes enjoyed five-to-six -course Sunday afternoon dinners, with late-afternoon coffee and tea and cakes and tarts. Delicious.

Memorable meals.

We have had kimchi and gingsing tea with Korean friends in their tiny, cramped apartment in France. There was the couscous and mint tea with our Algerian, Morrocan, and Tunisian friends. Wonderful little sweetened, cream-cheese-filled dumplings with our Polish friend (yes, she makes them herself). Coffee and special cakes with Ukranian friends. Parsley, lemon and couscous salad with a Lebanese friend.

Memorable meals.

During the worst drought ever in Mali, Africa, when food was so scarce that many people died daily, we sat on the sand floor of a small hut. Forming balls of hot rice with our fingers, from one common bowl, we dipped the rice balls into the other communal bowl of hot sauce. We didn't WANT to eat their food - they had so little. But they insisted. We did eat. Sharing not only their little bit of food, but also sharing in their lives. We communicated. We made friends. We ministered to them ... and they VERY MUCH ministered to us.

Memorable meals, indeed.

Just after the Romanian revolution we sat at the table of a very poor Christian farmer in one of the Romanian villages. We thankfully and humbly ate the cabbage soup and the stuffed cabbage leaves (delicious, too). The family stood quietly around the small wooden table, as is their custom with visitors, watching us eat. We were the well-fed eating the food of the very hungry. They were so pleased to have us at their table, in their little home - we could not refuse to eat. We ate. I will NEVER forget that meal - and the one small green glass of water that was put in the middle of the table for the four of us to drink from. I could get anxious about not having a whole set of matching drinking glasses, I am now ashamed to say ... while they had no qualms whatsoever in putting their one "best" little green glass in the middle of the table, to be shared by their four visitors. We ate. We drank. Our bodies were filled with the cabbage soup. And our hearts were filled with SO MUCH more than the cabbage soup.

Memorable meals.

This particular Romanian meal, perhaps, and maybe the one we ate sitting on the ground in the African hut, are two that stand out as VERY memorable meals. These meals are etched into our hearts forever.

American "table life", we discovered, after moving back from sixteen years in France, was being phased out in favor of fast-food places and other restaurants. Too many of us lose sight of the IMPORTANCE of memorable meals ... of shared tables. Many of us fail to see the importance of sharing meals with our children, our spouses, our friends and family, with Christians and non-Christians (who need to be told of God's love and ministered to), with the lonely and the destitute.

We need not travel far to find someone we could invite into our homes. We simply need to take the time to do so, beginning with those within our own circles and then reaching out farther. We are so blessed. We need to be sharing those blessings with others. We need to be sharing more and more meals ... in reality, sharing lives.

Memorable meals ... how many can YOU remember?