The Gift of Feeding Others

People often talk about their spiritual gifts and how they can best utilize them to serve God and others. Not to sound full of myself or completely looney, but I really do think that one of my spiritual gifts could be the gift of feeding others. I suppose that you could lump it under serving others, or caring for others, but I like to look at it as cooking for Jesus.

As far back as I can remember I have loved being in the kitchen, helping to prepare dinner, making chocolate chip cookies or banana bread to share with others. As I have grown, that love and excitement of making food in the kitchen has only grown. I always said that I wanted to be a chef when I was little and I have long admired the skills of Emeril Lagassee, Alton Brown, and many others. My path on Food Science has steered me a little bit away from that, but I am confident that God is directing me where He wants me. Eventually at least.

However, this semester He gave me an opportunity to share my talents and passion with many people and have some fun while I was at it. February 18th I competed with three other friends of mine in the 3rd Annual Boiler Culinary Throwdown Competition. It's basically Purdue's version of Iron Chef: America, but with teams of 4 instead of chefs going head to head. We were given the secret ingredient of lemon balm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_officinalis) and challenged to come up with an appetizer, main dish, and dessert incorporating that ingredient that could all be cooked in 90 minutes. Added challenge was that we did not have the use of an oven or stove, just two butane burners to make all of our food. Challenge Accepted.

My fantastic team consisting of my roommate Ginny, my good friend Amber, and my friend Jake, all of whom are also Juniors in Food Science at Purdue, dubbed ourselves "The Saccharides" bringing our flair for science into the cooking show-down. We each took the name of a Saccharide for the competition: Jake was sucrose(a disaccharide), I was fructose(monosaccharide), Ginny was glucose(monosaccharide, also dubbed "the simple one"), and Amber was galactose(monosaccharide). Also, did I mention that Jake is about 6' 5''? With me clocking in at 5' 7'', I was the next tallest team member. Hence the disaccharide/monosaccharide thing. haha, we're so clever. We went head to head against 4 other teams of 4, most of which had more experience working in a professional setting in one team member than we did in all 4 of ours combined. However, we had some pure talent and science on our side. Our main competition was a team composed of 4 HTM majors, two of whom are going off to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) after graduating in May. Some of them had competed in this competition before, but not won. They were slightly intimidating as far as competition goes, but we kept it all light hearted and fun and were determined to just make the best food we could and have a great time doing it.

In the end my team ended up being the overall winners of the throwdown taking home the coveted knives. I was so ecstatic and proud of all the work that my team had put into it. I had entered the competition simply because I wanted to face a challenge just to see how I would do. I never imagined that we could come out of it the winners. I received many congratulations from my family and friends that were there supporting me, as well as numerous people in the days after. However, it struck me a little while after how much I didn't really deserve the praise that I was receiving. I did not in any way feel worthy of it.

I firmly believe that for whatever reason, God gave me a talent and a passion for cooking and for sharing my cooking with others. Winning the competition that day was to me, a fantastic example of how God can use the talents he bestows on us. I was very humbled by the fact that my team won, because I knew that it was only by our God-given gifts that we had been able to do anything noteworthy. It has spurred me on to try and better understand how God wants me to use this specific set of gifts to serve and glorify Him. How can my knife skills and cheesecake making abilities bring glory and honor to him?

I feel as though I can't adequately describe how this throwdown made me feel, and really, how it brought me even just a little bit into a deeper relationship with Christ. It amazes me every time I think about it. The engraved knife I have sitting in my kitchen will forever be a reminder to me that God gave us beautiful gifts. Go out and use them!

Also, for those of you who were wondering, this is what we made.


The appetizer was a chilled melon soup, made with cantaloupe, red peppers, and cream. It was served with a parmesan nut crisp that is essentially like a cheese cracker.

The main course was pork loin cooked sous vide, served with a lemon balm creamy pesto over penne with sauteed red peppers.

Dessert was a no-bake lemon cheesecake with a lemon balm reduction syrup.

And yes, the soup was served in a 100mL beaker and the syrup in a test tube. For Science!

~A