Cooking for the One in Mind

Cooking for the One in Mind

The quality of smallness.

I wasn’t sure about the carrot soup. But it was a cold day, I was too lazy to make my own soup and I was craving comfort food. So I bought it from my local cafe. The soup was delicious. Spiced with cumin, cloves and turmeric and drizzled with coconut cream, it soothed my longing for winter food.

When I went back to my local cafe to tell the cook -he prefers to be known as a cook not a chef-how much I enjoyed the soup he blushed. Then without me asking he told me his story. He used to work in a fast food place-sort of. It was a restaurant that asked him to mass produce the food he was preparing. It wasn’t a pot of soup that he had to make, it was gallons. It wasn’t a few salads he had to prepare but buckets of coleslaw and caesar salads that he mixed together in plastic tubs with big wooden sticks. He said that he didn’t want to do that anymore but wanted to make food for the “one” in mind. So he is working at my local cafe which is a social enterprise that supports projects and people overseas to assist with education and finding financial stability. And he explores and experiments with food having the one person in mind to deliver happiness and warmth to them in a bowl on a cold day. And he literally does that. He steps out of the kitchen every time and hands the soup to the customer, cupping it in his hands with a smile and a brief blessing of sorts- “Enjoy.”

It has made me think about how important it is to value the one person. It has made me reflect on how tired people are of mass production, homogeneity, standardisation and imitation all for the sake of getting things done more quickly, making larger profits and multiplication for the sake of increased consumption.

We are in a bind because we are all used to speed, efficiency and getting things as soon as possible. But we also long for this kind of care, love and smallness.

By smallness I mean valuing the little acts of grace that sometimes surprisingly and charmingly intrude into our day brightening our lives-like getting a bowl of steaming liquid goodness on a wintery day from a cook who has the one person in mind.

I was talking with someone recently who wanted to help out and serve in her neighbourhood. It’s part of her job actually. When I suggested to her that she could simply try sitting in a cafe where people in the community are to connect and listen, she thought that was a great idea. She asked “Then what do I do? Who do I talk to? What do I say?” She wanted a strategy, a process with a goal. When I said to her that she could just sit there and allow the “incidental” things to happen, then discern what to do with those moments, I think she felt a little deflated. “What if nothing happens?” She asked.

Indeed, what if nothing happens? Why is that so frightening?

More and more I hear from people who want to grow small. In my view there is nothing wrong with that and in fact it’s what might in the end save us.

Rev. Dr Karina Kreminski, Mission Catalyst – Formation and Fresh Expressions, Uniting Mission and Education. Karina also blogs, this article is reprinted with permission from This Wild and Precious Life.

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