Taste & See: A Spirituality of Cooking

Over the past year or so, I have been getting more interested in cooking. I used to eat out often and eat simple stuff, sandwiches and canned soup and stuff like that. But lately I've been enjoying actual grocery shopping and cooking. 

Even better, my fiance, Ray, likes to cook with me too. 

I've been surprised to discover cooking is a spiritual experience, that my kitchen table can be holy like a Communion table, the steam arising from a pot as lovely as church incense. 

God teaches me patience with cooking. Real cooking leads to yummier food. My favorite spinach breakfast bake is slower than something out of the frozen food aisle-- waiting on the meat to brown, beating ten eggs, chopping onions, watching the timer on the oven until the whole thing is done. Patience goes against my nature, but every time I cook and wait for a satisfying meal I am reminded-- this is the spiritual life. Wait on God's slow work; be patient; it takes time. 

I think that's partly why Jesus tells the quick parable of the bakerwoman: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked through all the dough." The kingdom of heaven is present in an ordinary woman making ordinary loaves of bread. And yeast, like the kingdom of heaven, is on its own timetable. 

I think God has used cooking to bring Ray and me even closer together. When we cook, it's 50-50. We both chop, measure, stir, knead, wash dishes, and clean up. And eat! It's been another way to learn the rhythm of true love. We're in it all together, in joy, like eating, and in grunt work, like scrubbing stubborn pans. 

Maybe it won't feel that way after a few years of cooking often, but sitting down to a real meal made by my own hands still feels luxurious. Unless I screwed it up or picked a bad recipe, but that doesn't happen very often. (I avoid anything too complicated.) A healthy home cooked meal is a gift to myself. While eating my from-scratch asparagus soup this week, God whispered to me, You deserve this. You deserve to take care of yourself, you deserve to take time away from your work to eat well, because you belong to me. 

Fast food and takeout happen from time to time, but the extravagance of a homecooked meal feels even better, a reminder to keep on caring for myself in body, mind, and soul, a taste of Sabbath. It's a message I think we all need in a world that works too fast. 

I guess I'll probably have more to say about a spirituality of cooking as I continue cooking more. But I'm thankful for the insights I'm just beginning to see.