Melissa dArabian - Tasting Grace: Discovering the Power of Food to Connect Us to God, One Another, and Ourselves

Acknowledgments

Thanking everyone who helped birth a book is always an emotional experience. I have extra gratitude in my heart to the team that made this one happen.

First, I want to thank my agent, Margaret Riley King, who believed in this project even when I couldnt put it into words. Im so grateful that she believed in me even in moments when I didnt.

To the entire team at WaterBrook: Campbell Wharton, Laura Barker, Susan Tjaden, Kimberly Von Fange, Beverly Rykerd, Lisa Beech, Johanna Inwood, and Kelly Howard, thank you for making this book happen and for shepherding me through the process of writing without a recipe. Special thanks to my editor, Susan, who always knew just the tweak to suggest to solve my writing woes. Thank you for bringing Ginger Kolbaba into my life. Ginger, I am forever grateful for your input and keen editing eye. Ami McConnell, Im blessed by your vision, editing, and your friendship. Amy Paulson, you are one of my favorite friends. Thank you for photographing me.

A big thank-you to Norman Wirzba, whose writing has both educated and inspired me and whose friendship has surprised and delighted me. Thank you to Rachel Marie Stone, Tim Chester, and Kendall Vanderslice for writing words that changed me.

Im lucky to have cheerleaders who inspired me to continue on the path. Thank you, Angela Robles, Lisa Johnson, Rachel Hollis, Aarti Sequeira, Elizabeth Wampler, Drew and Heather Goodmanson, Jamey and Nicole Cohen, and Donna and Allen Frances. Thank you, my dear friend Mindy Williams, for inspiring the title that helped everything fall into place.

Finally, and most importantly, Im grateful to my family. Philippe, Ocane, Margaux, Charlotte, and Valentine: you are in my heart, in my soul, and in every breath I took while writing this book.

Final Thoughts

I f I ever wondered why God brought food into my life in such a big way, boldly letting this non-chef-cook win a major food competition and host her own show on Food Network, the exercise in writing this book solved any lingering mystery. For me, food has been the catalyst for deep connection with God. He is no longer a theoretical Big-Brother-like being whom I imagine hovering over us all. Neither is he an on-the-ground but elusive presence, like the hologram ghosts at Disneylands Haunted Mansion. God is here, working in this world, right this minute, and he is usingamong other thingsfood for his glory.

Competing on The Next Food Network Star helped me find my identity as a creator when I was forced to trust the ingredients and focus on God in the midst of all the noise. I learned about hospitality being service, not performance, from my moms simple mother-daughter teas. Katy Rudders Fritos and my elementary school secretary gave me dignity and showed me how sharing food and space at the table can restore oneness and equality. Libbys olive-and-egg dip in Moms recipe box connected me with my past, and a childhood eating on a limited budget turned me into a good steward. Who would guess that making brownies could be redemptive and help me heal after losing Mom to suicide, or that a night of overindulging in red wine could introduce me to Gods abundant grace? Marrying a French man introduced me to patience in my meals and gave me space to pause. Feeding my babies gave me a glimpse of the nurturing love God has for his own children and helped me trust his love more. Becoming a celebrity chef ironically gave me humility, by reminding me of my dependence on God.

Im getting better at delighting in the food God has created, and I finally can accept and even love who I am today, striving to glorify God with my body, not striving to gain a body that could be on a magazine cover. Im redefining the work of the kitchen as worship, and most days I am filled with more joy than dread when 5:00 p.m. rolls around. More telling, Im willing to do the dishes with a happy heart, and, frankly, thats the part of cooking Ive always struggled with. Im celebrating my role as a planter and waterer, leaning into dependence on God for food and for everything else. And Im honoring the sacred space of our family table, placing a higher priority on family dinners and the simple liturgy of eating around a table. These times are now more precious than ever, given the short number of years Ill have with all four girls at home before they move out to live their own lives.

Compassion, comfort, creation, authenticity, grace, patience, connection, nurturing, stewardship, humility, work, delight, acceptance, dependence, hospitality, and the sacredthese are gifts from God and characteristics of theological eating. But they are also something bigger and more important. They are invitations that God issues through foodinvitations to lean more fully into him and to experience grace that is so delicious we can literally taste it, our deepest spiritual hunger satisfied.

How we respond is up to us.

Chapter 1

Hungering for What Truly Satisfies

An Invitation into Compassion

Jesus used food to bring people together and to feed both bodies and souls.

F ood saved me. This is a bold statement for a Christian girl like me. But when youre hungry, in the literal empty-tummy sort of way, spiritual hunger takes a back seat. Who would guess that God would fill the second by filling the first? Yet isnt that what Jesus did? He used food to connect with people and feed them the real nourishment: his message of redemption.

When I was little, we lived on the east side of Tucson, Arizona, in a rundown, two-bedroom adobe house with worn, stained carpet and faded, sticky linoleum floors. Mom was raising my older sister, Stacy, and me on a shoestring. Shed divorced my dad when I was just a few months old. (Turns out, those quickie Vegas weddings when youre still a teenager dont always end in happily ever after.) She was also putting herself through college, living off student loans and a small teachers assistant salary, and dreaming of attending medical school.

Like most kids, I figured our life was like everyones. Despite its imperfections, our tiny house on East Silver Street was home. It was where we pulled up to the table for meals. It was where we knew we belonged.

When Stacy and I begged Mom for our own bedrooms, she let me move into the only space available: the utility room. We squeezed a twin mattress onto the floor of the narrow room. There was no space for a bed frame. The mattress fit only when the door was wedged half-open, pressing deep into the corner of my mattress. So thats how that bedroom stayed for yearswith a door permanently stuck forty-five degrees open. Since my makeshift bedroom was the only way out to the backyard, anyone wanting to go outside had to shimmy around the wedged door, stepping on my mattress in the process. Our large dog, Joya, went back and forth at will through the humongous doggy door, and to this day I remember the flip-flop of that rubber flap going all night long.

Why we had a large, hungry dog when we could barely afford to feed the humans in the house remains a mystery. Somehow our mom couldnt say no to our animal-loving requests. We had pets aplenty: rabbits, parakeets, guinea pigs, cats, andat a high (low?) pointthirty-eight chickens in our urban-zoned backyard. Mom sold the eggs, a carton at a time, to her classmates and professors to earn a few extra bucks a month.

Our mom loved Stacy and me deeply. We knew this in our bones. I remember the way she would stay up all night with me when I had chronic ear infections even though she had school the next morning. To this day, Mom was always my biggest fan. She constantly told me that my future was bright and that I could grow up to be anything I wanted. But she was stressed. Stressed about schoolmoneyfeeding usraising us, all the while probably feelinglike most college studentsbarely an adult herself.