Now We're Cooking!

Coming together is a beginning;

keeping together is progress;

working together is success.

--Henry Ford

I feel creative when I cook.  Because I follow recipes very closely and seldom "wing it" along the way, people might not think that my cooking is a particularly creative pursuit.  But looking at the process as a whole, I feel very creative, from making the choices of what to cook, to selecting the food at the store, to putting together and serving the meal. 

It's a good thing I wore an apron to cook that morning!

On Saturday morning, a group of volunteers gathered in the kitchen at my church to cook over 50 meals for the Deacons to deliver to members who might be sick or grieving or home with a new baby--whatever might make it difficult for them to prepare their own hot, homecooked meal.

Chief Creative Cooking Genius, Theresa

The chief Creative Genius in this group was our leader, Theresa, who orchestrated the whole affair.  In three hours, she directed 12 people to turn $250 dollars worth of food into 9 different recipes separated into at least 50 different storage containers to be frozen for future delivery.  She runs an impressive operation!

Betty and Leigh on burrito duty

We made chowder and chili and chicken tetrazzini and burritos and pot pies and quiches and some things that I didn't even know about because I wasn't involved with those particular dishes.  We had choppers and bakers and stirrers and pork pullers and chicken saute-ers and dish washers and counter wipers and pie crust rollers and mixers and burrito folders. 

Dianne and Don, one of two husband-and-wife teams 

None of us created the recipes or grew the food or attended to fancy presentation.  And yet it was the most wonderful creative process to be part of that bustling kitchen with eleven other people who love to cook, or be part of church ministry, or hang out with friends, or whatever else might have been their personal motivation for being there. 

Can you believe Lexie just had a baby two months ago?  And she chose to hang out with us making Chicken Divan when she managed to have a baby-free day!

I was kind of wishing we could all take one of the dishes home with us; there wasn't a single meal that I wouldn't have been happy to share with my family!  

Chris is trying to hide her face from the camera as she works on pot pies, but I caught her smile!

I thought that spending three hours in the church kitchen would drain me of all desire to cook at home for awhile.  But on the contrary, I came right home and planned a few menus for my family this week, then headed to the store for a little grocery shopping.  It was a pleasure!

The fruits of our labor--a freezer loaded with meals to share with our community!