by Sr Nunother  

I’m not much of a cook. Not much as in “what do you like in your omelet?” There are many cooking and baking opportunities in and around the Convent, and I want to participate. When I’m part of a Sunday night dinner team, I faithfully show up and am inevitably assigned to table setting because I do a nice job. Or pre-dinner dishes — another place I excel. The past four Saturday mornings, I’ve been part of a team preparing food products for our upcoming Advent Festival. I began by braiding Saint Lucia bread in an assembly line and slowly but surely — sort of like the bread — I found myself at the end of the line putting baking sheets on baking pans. I’d place three loaves of bread just so, and transport them to and from the ovens. The following week I was on apple jam making and was introduced to a deluxe apple peeler. I spent several minutes trying to make it stick to the counter, as my two partners gathered the ingredients without me. I patiently twirled the handle of my apple peeler, then chopped with precision as they discussed how much pectin, cinnamon, and nutmeg to use, and what constitutes a rolling boil. I received kudos for my size-perfect apple pieces and can verify this, because not wanting to be wasteful, I ate the ones that weren’t. I twirled and chopped for the next one and a half Saturday mornings, then got my big break: putting together apple streusel pies with two wonderful pastry chefs.  We completed a few pies and I was asked to bag them for freezing. The chefs suggested I stick with bagging as I did a great job (evidently it usually takes two people per pie). Is there a hidden message here? Is that self-pity I’m feeling? Our baking supervisor happened by and said these magic words, “You’re a blessing, just quietly working away at whatever job you’re given.”  Me a kitchen blessing??  Is she confusing quiet with sulking?? Perhaps I’m not called to be a chef, pastry or otherwise. Perhaps I’m called to chop, bag, and put labels on jars. And if that’s what’s needed, it should be quite enough.