Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Essential Ingredient

Perhaps this pizza slice is slightly overcooked?
Photo by Kevin Payravi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA-3.0

Have you ever cooked a dish which turned out to be plainly inedible, or even downright dangerous to consume?

It can happen to the best of us, as these examples prove:

A grandmother with failing eyesight accidentally grabbed a bottle of ammonia instead of vinegar when making potato salad for her family. They started gagging at the mere smell of it, which fortunately prevented anyone from eating it!

An 18-year-old living on his own for the first time wanted to make fried rice. He poured some oil into a very hot pan, then dumped in a bunch of uncooked rice. Needless to say, the burned mess had to be thrown out.

Another young person forgot to add water when cooking packaged ramen noodles. I guess cooking isn’t for everyone!

Did you know that a cooking fail even happened in the Bible?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Have “Large Pot” Faith!

Julia Child, “The French Chef.” Public Domain Photo.

I’ll bet many of you grew up watching the televised cooking shows of Julia Child, “The French Chef.” If not, you’re probably familiar with her name.

Credited with popularizing French cuisine for an American audience, this six-foot, two-inch dynamo was always a hoot to watch. You not only learned a great deal about cooking from Julia, but you were also entertained with zingers like these:

“A party without a cake is just a meeting.”

“I think every woman should have a blowtorch.”

“Cooking is like love—it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

“I just hate health food!”

But the Julia Child quotation that has stayed with me is this:

“Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.”

Why does this phrase resonate with me? Because with faith, as with cooking, the size of our “container” can be a limiting factor.

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