The Thursday Review: Discipleship and the Zen of Cooking

first posted February 20, 2009

My wife and I have a little on-going domestic disagreement. She says "frying pan"; I say "fry-pan." Not marriage counseling material, for sure, but it eventually reached the point where we had to look it up in the dictionary. Apparently, though not as common, "fry-pan" is a legitimate option.

But when I stopped to think about it, I realized why I call it a "fry-pan." It's because James Barber said "fry-pan." He used to have this down-to-earth cooking show on CBC, where he showed people how to live richly (and cheaply) in the kitchen by cooking well and "making do with what you've got." I discovered The Urban Peasant back in 1997, when my schedule had me home just as the show came on. I'd watch him cook these fascinating meals with perfect nonchalance, then I'd head down to our small town grocery store, hunting for the supplies to make the dishes I'd just seen.

(If you want to see some classic James Barber-isms, and learn how to make a great salmon dish at the same time, click here.)

But watching him intently one afternoon after another, I received this great life-gift: I learned to cook. Without even realizing it, I started turning both halves of the cut onion face down on the cutting board, so you can slice it without tears. I started grinding the pepper into the heated fry-pan, so it roasts a bit first. I started crushing the garlic clove with the flat of the knife, so it peels easier and chops finer.

The thing is, he didn't teach me how to follow recipes, he taught me how to cook: how to improvise boldly, making a recipe up as you went along; how to evoke far away places just by adding a few spices to the pot; how to "cook with your nose," smelling what's going on in the pan while you're doing other things, so you can catch it before it burns. He made the kitchen a place where proverbs-- like "The nice thing about cooking is that everyone knows how to do it," or "You make do with what you've got"-- these proverbs came to life and had the texture of truth.

And he got me saying "fry-pan."

I've been thinking about James Barber lately. Partly because we've started teaching our kids how to cook, and I'm sincerely trying to pass on what I learned form him, but mostly because I'm thinking about discipleship.

I wonder if, in a small way, this is what our discipleship with Jesus should be like. We come to him intently day after day until, without even realizing it, we're doing things the way he did: sitting at the table with people the world rejects, loving those who hate us, praying for the will of the Father to be done in us. Our lives become places where his proverbs come to life and have the texture of truth-- "With the measure you measure it will be measured back to you," "If salt loses its saltiness, what good is it anymore?" We're not just following recipes for morality, we're improvising boldly, living life after him.

And before we know it, we're calling the "greatest" the "least," calling the "first" the "last," calling those who mourn "blessed" -- we're saying "fry-pan" when everyone else says "frying pan." Because that's how our Rabbi did it.