Cooking up a perfect storm

I made a really fabulous dinner tonight. You really should have been there.

Too bad I was the only one who ate it.

My menu included…

– A smoothie made of carrot juice, fresh mango, strawberries and raspberries

– Toast with hummus

– A salad comprised of field greens, green beans and garden-fresh cucumber, dressed with garlic, cilantro, lime juice, and olive oil

If you’re anything like me, what you’re experiencing right now is called Food Jealousy. (Don’t worry, it isn’t fatal).

You see, I recently discovered this new passion:

Cooking.

Actually, to be more accurate, what happened was a rediscovery of a dormant passion.

It started when I was unable to cook for 10 months while away school.

I began to loathe eating at the dining hall everyday. Not because I was served bad food per se (apparently, my school is consistently a contender for the coveted title of “Best Dining Hall Food” – although I could have done without all the oil used for everything). Rather, I genuinely missed cooking my own food.

I told my friends that what I missed was freedom: the ability to run to the grocery store and make whatever the heck I wanted for dinner in my own kitchen.

In the meantime, I became the salad bar Iron Chef. Seriously. I made some very weird concoctions (most notably, perhaps, was a breakfast sandwich made with wheat bread, egg whites, cucumber, spinach, tomato and salsa. It’s been said that I have a stomach of steel. Maybe there’s some truth to that).

There is definitely something to be said for my desire to do my own thing. I’ve always been very independent. And sometimes I just wanted to scream, “If spaghetti is served one more time I’ll… I’ll… barge into that kitchen and make my own dinner!” Brazen, no?

But I realize now there was something else I was longing for: creativity.

Upon returning home, I found myself grocery shopping and cooking meals for my busy family. Before long, I was doing both of these things voluntarily. Weird, I know.

Cooking is a creative outlet for me. To make a meal, I go to the store, scope out the produce section and ask myself: “now what can I make with sprouts?” (The answer of course is rosemary-chicken Panini sandwiches. Duh). I don’t think I’ve used more than a recipe or two all summer. The chance to come up with meals from my imagination is an adventure.

Inevitably, I’ve made some weird dishes. Often, incredulous looks have followed my response to the persistent question, “what’s for dinner tonight?” particularly the night I made guacamole chicken burgers. (For the record, the consensus was that they were delicious).

What also is noteworthy is the fact that cooking calms me down. Sure, it can be stressful at times (sorry about the burnt bacon last week, everybody!) but usually I find peace in the kitchen – chopping and dicing, boiling and sautéing.

It’s rhythmic. It’s meditative (I like to think and pray while I cook). Most of all, I love the way cooking brings people together, both in the kitchen and around the table.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I love doing this.

I told my mom about my exciting revelation and all she said was:

“I could have told you that years ago.”

I was like, “WHAT?! Well you could have told me then!”

Maybe I wouldn’t have believed her then, but it would have been nice to know that she saw this passion in me when it was just a spark.

I’ve decided that now that the fire has caught, I can’t let it burn out. I’m going to have to work doubly hard once the school year starts to improve my skills and exercise my creativity. This means I’m going to have to hound my friends until they let me use their kitchens. Or, worst-case scenario, I stand on the side of the road with a “Will cook for food!” sign. Either way, everybody wins.

I doubt that I’ll go on to be master chef. I mean, I don’t think I like cooking enough to devote my life to it. But I’m going to work on honing and refining my skills, because I want to be able to creatively bless people with all of the gifts that I’ve got.

I have a friend who is a few years older than me who graduated from my university. She was a communications major who later attended cooking school. She currently works for a non-profit that teaches women in the inner city how to cook healthy food for their families. I felt liberated after a conversation we had about life and doing what you love. There are opportunities to use seemingly disparate passions in extraordinary ways and I intend to seek these out.

May you spark creativity in your life this week. Discover a new passion. Fan into flame a dormant passion. Refine your passion into something that will bless others. Or let someone else know that you see a spark of passion in them. Create beauty and help others do the same.

Living passionately,

-Lauren

P.S. For great thoughts on creativity, check out Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk

Peace while in the fast lane...

It's been a while since I've written, which is a bummer, considering I have had all summer and yes, I've been really busy working and stuff, but when I've had free time I've made up excuses for why I can't write. Like Facebook. And YouTube. And staring into space thinking about nothing. Or everything.

Phew. Glad that's off my chest.

Which brings me to what I wanted to write about, which was lack of focus in my life.

You see, one of my strengths is ideation. There is a constant whirlwind of ideas in my brain. It's awesome. Kind of like the Matrix (which I've never seen. But it sure seems like a cool comparison). Unfortunately, I've yet to learn how to attack one idea at a time. This means that I get overwhelmed really easily.

So I was all set to write this terrific blog.

But my friend who also has trouble focusing focused before I could focus and she wrote a blog about focusing before I could focus on writing my blog on focusing.

And she basically said what I wanted to say, except way more concisely and eloquently than I ever could have. Read her blog here.

Fortunately, I have lots of problems and quirks and stupid things I do that I can write about.

Which brings me to my latest dilemma...

What I could really use is some peace.

Not world peace.

Or peace, love and happiness.

Don't get me wrong, I think those kinds of peace would be great. But I'm looking for a peace for when things are crazy in my head and in my heart. A peace that sticks around even when I'm working three jobs and my bank account is still frighteningly low. The kind of peace that "surpasses all understanding."

I'm reminded of the Biblical story of Elijah. He went on a mountain to hear from God.

There was a big and powerful wind.

But God wasn't in the wind.

Then there was an earthquake.

But God wasn't in the earthquake.

Then there was a fire.

But God wasn't in the fire.

And then there came a gentle whisper. And God spoke.

I think that Elijah must have been taken aback by this. The God who could have spoken to him through nature's extremes chose instead to communicate with extreme subtlety.

I wonder if sometimes we don't get what we're looking for, because we're desperately searching in all the wrong places. We try to find peace in our work, in our relationships, even in nature, but somehow, nothing really sticks.

I eagerly sought work this summer in hopes of achieving financial security. I'm working, but not as much as I wanted. Work hasn't necessarily brought lots of stress, but it certainly hasn't been a catalyst for peace.

I think that it is in silence that peace is able to come. Not literal silence, per se, although I think that can help (especially for someone like me, who is ridiculously easily distracted).

What I'm talking about is an internal silence. A quieting of the soul, if you will.

Today, I sat down on my bed for 30 minutes (or what felt like it, anyway... it could have been five, since I have the attention span of a preschooler), and I was quiet. I did the best I could to ignore my schedule and to do list for the day. After lying down briefly, I sat up in order to not fall asleep. I sat there and I was quiet and I tried to listen (weird, I know). The results of my experiment with silence weren't anything breathtaking. But afterward I felt strangely at peace.

I am beginning to find that when I take the time to be in silence (for me, that means both externally and internally), things begin to make more sense.

It's in these moments, that I am finally able to focus on what really matters. My huge to do list become less important. Life gains value. People become paramount. And sometimes, in the silence, I believe that God speaks.

So in all seriousness....

Peace.

-Lauren