Gifts for Cooking Up Hope

I have acquired quite the collection of cooking gear. 

Since I took a culinary course over the summer, my friends gifted me with all sorts of lovely cooking implements for my birthday a few weeks ago. 

I have a Mediterranean cookbook boasting 150 recipes {which is about 149 more than I could ever cook}. 

I have spices with the glamorous names of Sunny Paris and Tuscan Sunset {to ensure my dishes are the height of fashionable spice-couture}. 

I am now the proud owner of a never-needs-sharpening ceramic chef’s knife, just like the one that so intimidated me in cooking class {you can read about here}. 

I have a chic black and yellow apron with coordinating oven mitts to wear while I cook. {My black high heels look stunning with the apron, by the way.} 

I even have an Eiffel Tower bottle opener and a set of French handpainted plates to serve my guests their eatables on. 

So what’s a gal to do with all this cooking paraphernalia? Why, cook, of course, right?

Well, I have to confess.

I’ve discovered that I like taking cooking classes, but I don’t think I like to cook all that much. 

I had high hopes that since I like to bake, I’d like to cook too. But I realized that although cooking and baking might be related, they’re more like cousins than sisters. 

Getting three or four different dishes ready to serve at the same time requires quite a bit of skill and planning. When I bake, I’m whipping up just one sweet treat with a side of frosting that grants me quite a bit of grace. I can let a cake cool on the counter for a few hours and frost it much later if I want to. 

Cooking is a much wilder adventure. 

But I’m growing a little more daring. On this adventure that is my life. I feel sure that your life is an adventure too?

I think about how faith and trust are related but different too. Faith is what moves me to put my trust in the one who is drawing me closer. 

While God reframes and writes fresh pages to this story of my life, it’s only by looking backward that I can recognize that the broken pieces are gifts too. 

Gifts that he will use to make his future purposes and plans for me unfold and blossom in his time.

If you’re discouraged because the calendar has turned to fall and you can’t see a sign of a flowering bud through all the leaf-shorn branches, keep hoping. The seasons will change again soon. 

In the meantime, I’ve been checking the cooking school’s calendar of upcoming classes. I wonder if Pumpkinology would make me a gourd gourmet. 

Or would “What’s Shakin’ Bacon” help me face my fear of fixing bacon?

No, they're not what quite I'm looking for. 

But I think Using Your Noodle might be just what I need to put all my cooking gifts to good use. 

I'm linking up with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for Your Heart. Join me there?