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The easiest way I can explain it is “being in the zone”. We are all born of Creator, and therefore, born to create. So every time you create something beautiful, you connect to Self and Source. The more present you are, the more amazing your creation. This includes everything! Painting, music, writing, quilting, sports, and my favorite, cooking.
Finding God in Gourmet is a way for you to be conscious in your daily life, especially when you cook. A conscious cook is focused, sets an intention, is aware and is thankful. Finding God in Gourmet means recognizing the spiritual aspect and blessing of creating food for yourself and family. For example, you look for ways God is talking to you while you cook. What lessons are being offered to you in the recipe you are following? Are you able to see how much love is present just by the fact that you have access to an abundance of ingredients? Finding God in Gourmet is reconnecting to your childhood wonder of the miracle of how things grow, the rich green of basil, the smell of an orange, the sweetness of sugar. We lose connection with God when we take things for granted and don’t take time to really appreciate our many blessings. You can’t be thankful and angry at the same time. You can’t be thankful and depressed at the same time. Finding God in Gourmet is a way to elevate and edify your daily life. It is a way for you to create zen time while you cook; to transform making dinner from drudgery to delight, from a chore to a cherished time of day. For some of you, that seems like a miracle. Well, miracles happen when you are in the zone! It takes practice and commitment. It takes setting an intention that cooking equals connection - with yourself, and with God. It takes asking and then opening your heart to receive. It will NOT take any more of your time, as you already have cooking dinner on your list. I share my recipes on my website FindingGodInGourment.com and on my YouTube channel Maile Andrus-Price. I’m working on including a spiritual thought at the end of every recipe. My website includes “bites of wisdom” that have come to me while cooking. You may find them quite enlightening, take a few minutes to check it out. I invite and encourage you to find God in Gourmet. I know it will change cooking dinner from a chore to a cherished time of day and bring you joy and peace. It has for me. I will soon be offering courses to help you do this. If you would like to know when these courses are available, please contact me through my website, or [email protected], or message me on Facebook.
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I recently read a wonderful book called Two Old Women by Velma Wallis. It is an Alaskan legend that was passed down from generation to generation. It’s a great read and so inspiring. It's about two old women who were left behind to die by their tribe. Times were hard, it was winter, there was no food.
Up until the time they were abandoned, these two women had been in the habit of complaining about their aches and pains and how difficult it was to walk, move, and get around. They were helped by their tribe, their loads carried for them, they had walking sticks. They were both advanced in age, but admittedly complained more than their difficulties merited. Once the shock of being left behind by their tribe wore off and reality hit, one of the women voiced their choices - either stay in the open and die from starvation and cold, be eaten by wolves, or get up and move. Though old, they were not ready to die and decided they would start walking in the opposite direction that their tribe went. The story tells about their hardships, how they realized how easy they had it before in comparison, and how they had exaggerated their aches and pains when they were with their family and tribe. They walked each day until their bodies gave out. Their hunting skills from their youth were rekindled. They were able to catch small birds and rabbits to keep themselves alive. They remembered a camp they had stayed at many years ago and managed to make it there. Much to their astonishment, they realized they had forgotten their walking sticks and found that by pushing themselves to their very limit, they had become stronger. They fortified the camp, survived the winter and stocked up food, made mittens, shoes and coats from beaver skins. By the time winter came upon them again, they were strong, fully prepared to meet whatever lay ahead. The best part of the story, and I do hope you’ll read it, is that they had the opportunity to save their tribe, who once again was facing starvation. We are stronger than we know. Miracles manifest when we do things that are hard! We can accomplish what we once thought was impossible. Are you appreciating the hard road ahead of you? Have you learned through past challenges that you have become stronger? Are you able to be thankful for that? What are you facing now, that feels impossible? Here are a few things that I thought were impossible for me: putting myself through Nursing School, leaving the religion I was raised in, divorcing my first husband. I would not want anyone to go through the intense pain involved with these things, but the fact is, we all experience heartache and hardship. Just like the two old women, we can choose to do what feels impossible and come out victorious. We each must decide - do you stay here and die? (die spiritually, emotionally, by playing it safe, staying in your comfort zone, not taking any chances) or do you choose to take a leap of faith? If you have been following this blog, you know that I took a leap of faith by retiring early from Nursing. I’m pursuing my passion of connecting people with God through food and making a living from it. I’m in the messy middle where it still sometimes seems impossible. But I choose to believe, to trust, to have faith, to do the work. I’ve done what I thought was impossible before, and so can you! In my latest F Word Friday, F Words That Inspire #48, I talked about how the future can be brought into the now. One second from now is the future. What we do now affects our future, and thus our now.
I recently read Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard, the Founder of Patagonia. He recently donated his $3 billion company to fight climate change. This book was life changing for me. It really hit home how we humans MUST make changes to save our planet, and thus our civilization, NOW. I didn’t realize that it takes 140 gallons of water to make ONE T-shirt, that the dyes in our clothes contain toxic chemicals that are killing us and our planet. I know this is not a popular topic, but it is of utmost importance! Each and everyone of us must take responsibility for our future and our earth. Take a moment to think about what changes you can make, today, to alleviate global warming. We will all certainly need to make huge changes. It’s important to start somewhere, so start with something small, today. Here are some simple suggestions, that if we ALL do, it will make a difference: Hang your clothes out to dry. We put a clothesline in our garage a few years ago. It cut our utility bill substantially before we had solar.
Buy clothes from Companies that do NOT use toxic chemicals or dyes (Patagonia is one!) Start switching to soaps, detergents and toothpaste that don’t come in plastic containers - Amazon has tons of products: soaps, reusable bags, toothpaste tablets, bamboo straws, etc. Combine your purchases into one order to reduce carbon emissions. Yes, these products are more expensive, but is there any price too high to save our planet? Google “zero waste swaps” Take a few minutes to think about how you eat, dress, commute, and consume. Decide to be conscious of the footprint you create, make the necessary changes. Think about eating foods that are GMO. Pesticides are put INTO THE seeds. What is it doing to your body? The following countries have banned GMO’s: France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, Malta, Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia. Stop supporting GMO products. Bigger goals:
Donate to organizations that are making a difference. Yesterday I wrote checks to Earth Justice and The Trust for Public Land. If you donate by the end of the year, your donation will be matched to make an even bigger difference. Other trusted organizations:
Think about what kind of world you want to leave your children and grandchildren. Or if you are still young, what kind of world do you want to live in the future, 40 years from now? The future is NOW. It’s my sincere desire that the tone you hear in this post comes across as my passion to save our planet. I’m not promoting criticism, only change! I’m currently in Yucca Valley, California. It's a desert. I’m from Kailua, Hawaii, which is a tropical, lush, paradise. To say Yucca Valley is a contrast from Kailua, is an understatement.
I have lived in other places in the world, so I have learned to appreciate the diversification of the environment I find myself in. When I moved away from home for the first time to go to school in Utah, I was shocked at the brown mountains, the drab scenery and the dryness in the air. It was summer. It was hot. There were no trade winds blowing. I was in shock. I am so happy to tell you that one year later, I had learned to love and appreciate the desert hues of gray, green, and soft pastels. I learned the meaning of cold, Spring Fever, and the immense beauty of Fall colors. Diversification. It is a blessing because you have the opportunity to widen your experience of what is beautiful. It’s been a while since I lived or stayed in a desert. It didn’t take me long to appreciate the differences and enjoy the contrasts. The diversification I’ve experienced this last week will make me appreciate my home even more. It’s the same with difficult challenges. It’s never fun to go through them, but it helps you appreciate the good times, and that is a good thing. It helps you count your blessings and appreciate what you have. So when you find yourself with some diversification, recognize it as an opportunity to see what is beautiful. Sometimes you can’t see the beauty until a year, or two, or many years later. When I look back on some challenges, like going through a wicked divorce, I choose to remember the beautiful moments that were mixed in with the pain. Like one of my ex-husband’s friends going out of their way to say hello to me, the kindness of strangers, the shoulder’s I had to cry on. Remberming the depth of angst I felt, helps me to experience an equivalent depth of joy. Did I say that clearly? The depth of my current joy is equal to the converse depth of the pain I experienced. I see that as a blessing. I hope you do too. May you appreciate the diversification that Life brings you. |
AuthorSpiritual Foodie, Chef, Holistic RN, Healer Archives
January 2025
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