Cooking and Timing

I have been married for 14 years now. Yet it is only just now that I have realized that my cooking has improved. Lately, I have been cooking in a kitchen that is not my own. I only brought with me two things from my kitchen: my mixer and my rice cooker. Sometimes the kitchen is very hard to work in because I don't know where things are. Still, I am grateful to be there.

Through the years cooking has been hard for me. If I follow a recipe exactly, it will never turn out for me, no matter how many times it was tested in a test kitchen somewhere. I know it's not logical, it's just the way it is. For instance: Koolaide. How do you screw that up? I have no idea, yet somehow I screw it up every time.

So I have learned a different way to cook, what I call "Going With The Flow". Basically I cook to taste, feel, and sight. Yesterday I made pulled pork. There was not enough BBQ Sauce in the fridge. So I made my own, throwing in a bowl all the things I thought it needed, tasting it, and then repeating the process until it tasted right. When I made sweet and sour chicken, the process I used to bread the chicken was this: I put the chicken into a milk and egg mixture and then into flour full of seasoning and back again until it felt right. When it was done it was just the right texture to hold up against the sauce. Sight comes to play mainly with plating the meal, but I have had to learn to not cook the veggies to long or they lose their color. When cooking like this, sometimes things don't turn out very well. Most of the time, however, I create something that is wonderful.

This brings me to timing

My step dad (my Daddy) was an incredible cook. He would walk into the kitchen cook a wonderful meal and walk out of the kitchen leaving it better than when he was in it. I never had anything that he made that I didn't love. I have often thought about him and wondered how did he do that. I am sure he couldn't have told me ether it was just one of his talents. As I have been married there have been times - brief though they were- where I tried to follow after him.

Since I have been here I have realized that somewhere I have began to learn how to do just that. Almost on a daily bases when I walk out of the kitchen with the meal on the table it is cleaner then when I walked in. I am also realizing that I enjoy making a meal more than a free for all. As I am leaning to cook foods and knowing the timing to do so I can use the time better. Cleaning around me when needed is easier to do. Yet, so is adding more attention to a specific area of a meal. Somewhere I have learned to add my heart to a meal. Rather than creating a feed trough.

So, the other day I was noticing this as my Mother in Law and I where working together to make lunch of leftovers. I was cutting apples and tangerines when she asked, "Do they ever get to eat just a whole apple?" I was set back I didn't know what to say, how to answer her question.
Yes they each fruit all the time. Without my help. The answer I gave was just as shocking to me as the question. "Yes, I am sure they do. But does it hurt to take a moment and serve my family?" Until this point I had never 100% realized that is what I was doing.

That is what cooking and using timing has taught me. I can serve them in a way that somehow comes from my heart. When I take the time to put extra effort into a meal I benefit because I am learning to deepen my heart, while they enjoy the labors. But when time is used wisely and the kitchen is clean whoever finishes the clean up has less to do and can spend more time doing the things they need to do.

In the past time was truly wasted on meals and clean up because I didn't have the talent or the desire to have it. Yet the Lord has found away to teach me a simple truth. A house of order truly will give you more time to spend with Lord and serving him with the mind set of serving others.

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Thomas S. Monson, “Building Your Eternal Home,” Ensign, Oct 1999, 2

Our house is to be a house of order. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,” advised Ecclesiastes, the Preacher. 14 Such is true in our lives. Let us provide time for family, time for work, time for study, time for service, time for recreation, time for self—but above all, time for Christ.

Then our house will be a house of order.

Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Cultivating Divine Attributes,” Ensign, Nov 1998, 25

Once faith grows into a firm, abiding testimony, giving us hope in our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness; once we see through the eye of faith that we are children of a loving Father who has given us the gift of His Son to redeem us, we experience a mighty change in our hearts. 27 We feel “to sing the song of redeeming love,” 28 and our hearts overflow with charity. Knowing that the love of God “is the most desirable of all things … and the most joyous to the soul,” 29 we want to share our joy with others. We want to serve them and bless them.

Derek A. Cuthbert, “The Spirituality of Service,” Ensign, May 1990, 12
Service changes people. It refines, purifies, gives a finer perspective, and brings out the best in each one of us. It gets us looking outward instead of inward. It prompts us to consider others’ needs ahead of our own. Righteous service is the expression of true charity, such as the Savior showed.