Littlest Kitchen, post one

 When it comes down to it, food is my number one passion in life. Food is a true representation of culture and tradition and it brings people together like almost nothing else can. Spices and rituals and methods of preparation may be distinct throughout the world but the purpose of food is always the same: to provide daily nutrients and give people a time to pause and be together during the day. Food is the ultimate act of love.

Ever since discovering food blogs back in freshman year of college, I’ve always dreamed of starting my own but the thing about being a food blogger is you have to like, make up your own recipes and I’m just not that kind of gal. I am, however, the kind of gal who loves to eat and share stories from the kitchen. And what a more perfect place to share stories from than Bangkok, a city teeming with street venders, stalls of fresh produces and my tiny kitchen.

Littlest Kitchen posts will to be weekly food related stories, sharing stories of meals eaten together, dished cooked on the wok on the back porch, smashing baby cockroaches as they climb out of the waffle maker, and mixing brownies while sitting on the floor. Your typical cooking experiences when you living in Bangkok and your kitchen just a sink, a tiny toaster over, and a gas cylinder.

Because food is love and love is meant to be shared.

Tonight’s feast features a veggie masala spice that Mina brought for me from Nepal. After a particularly social day, my body needed large amounts of vegetables so I chopped up a colorful array of yellows, oranges, and greens, tossed them with veggie masala and oil and roasted them in the toaster oven for 20 minutes. While the veggies cooked, I threw some lentils and farro into a pot and brought them to a boil. Once the grains and pulses are al dente, I mixed the combo with roughly chopped cilantro. Finally, I combined the grains and veggies and added a delicious and simple lime-yogurt sauce and sprinkled black sesame seeds on top. Simple. Delicious. Nourishing. Littlest Kitchen approved!

FOMO is a nono?

You know what sucks? Looking back.

Like it’s so stinking hard to be in the present especially when you’ve had such sweet memories and are scheming up exciting and compelling dreams and visions for your life. Man, living your best life can sometimes come with unintended consequences like missing your friends and endless reels of what-if’s and I-could-have’s.

So this last year I graduated college knowing I would move to Bangkok but not having a single clue what my time here would look like and I’ll be the first to say it’s nothing like I imagined. It’s hard and emotionally draining. The city is hot and crowded; work is hard and frustrating. Yet all the hardships can’t overshadow how much I’ve grown to enjoy (and even love) the overcrowded city, the humans I now have the privilege to call friends, and the job where I learn more about myself and Jesus on the daily.

Something I’ve struggled with since day one of being in Bangkok is FOMO (fear of missing out) syndrome. Y’all can relate. FOMO starts creeping in when you see someone post an IG photo of a party you weren’t invited to or your BFF starts hanging out with her new work crew. Well imagine that if you’re living overseas and your friends are getting married/having babies/moving/working awesome jobs, etc. It's the pits and it’s the prime opportunity for all the ‘should-have’s’ and ‘what-if’s’ to start taking root in my brain.

“I should have stayed at the Club and helped my kids graduate high school”

“I could have worked harder to find a full time job in the city.”

“What if I got the job? Would I be happier than I am? Why am I even here when I just want to be in Chicago?”

All of these are real thoughts I have like on the weekly. And get this, nothing positive in gained by these reoccurring playbacks. I can’t change the past, I’m not in Chicago, I don’t have the job I wanted. I’m here in Bangkok, working at an NGO, making new friends, eating noodles. Like this is my life. And wasting my time and energy thinking about and wishing to change the past robs me of the JOY that is this present moment. Life’s pretty stinking sweet once I stop focusing on what other people are doing and accomplishing and start giving myself permission to be fully invested and present where I’m placed.

The grass will always greener, right? Or maybe, to take the famous words of Justin Beiber or actually Big Sean, “the grass ain't always greener on the other side; it's greener where you water it.” From my experience, when I acknowledge my past peoples and experience for propelling me to where I am AND cherish the new friends and adventures of this present moment, I’m able to pay homage to the things of old and fully live in the present moment. It's like I get to bake my cake and eat it. The best of both worlds.

I may never beat FOMO but I can sure can live out a life worth remembering. 

The one time I tried rock climbing and cried

Man, so many things have happened since we’ve last chatted. It seems unreal that I was in the States 4 weeks ago! Re-immersion was a mess; I sort of just slept until my body got used to the heat. Then I skipped on over to Myanmar for a super awesome visa run! And then last weekend I rock climbed and it changed my life for forever.

The Gal Pals

Let me explain.

So, three pals and me drive to this wonderful climbing camp like 3 hours outside Bangkok and I climb for the first time in my life and y’all its like so tough like I consider myself to be an active, fit human but hot dang not fit enough to master the mountains. On my second climb I am on the struggle bus. I can see what my body needs to do but my foot refuses to stretch that way and I don’t trust my arm’s ability to pull my body up and I’m crying out of total frustration. Jodi, my trusty belay, is calmly encouraging me: “just take a rest, look at it from a different angle, you can get it.”

And then BAM it hits me. I’ve been working on re-grounding my identity in Christ which is hard work and, for me at least, brings up a ton of past gunk I don’t care to think about and my soul get weary from all the work and processing and thinking and I would rather not do that. My brain KNOWS what I need to do but my heart doesn’t trust that I have the strength to do the work. Just like my body on that rock. And, right when I was crying and frustrated on the rock climbing route, right as Jodi started encouraging me, God came along and whispered, “I too want you to rest and look at your life from a different angle. I’ve got you.”

Taken on the second day, crying was also involved on this route as well as a sloth like climb to the top.

Jodi’s and God’s encouragement propelled me upwards and I finished that route victoriously! Well, more like as slowly as a snail coupled with tons of rest and cursing but completed. And I intend to do that with my identity learning as well. God got me up the actual mountain and I know he can carry me up this metaphorical one as well.