Well-Done "Chicken"

What God has started in you, God will complete or finish. How can we know if something is done? According to Philippians 1:6, we will not be complete until we are with Jesus. That makes sense. When Christ comes in the end, everything will be made right - a phrase I use often. Another way to say it is that there is coming a day when everything will be whole, complete, and perfect. You know, well done.

Photo by Rafael Hoyos Weht on Unsplash

This describes everything I cooked on a grill for most of my life until recent years. How can you tell if something is done? Well....is it black yet? Does it have enough of that charcoal look about it? Does it bounce off the grill when you flip it now? I had no idea when to tell when something was adequately cooked, so everything I made was well-done. Even the menu stated it.

It took me years with a lot of help from Diane to learn how to cut into what I’m cooking to see what the inside looks like to determine if something is adequately cooked. And with beef, pink is not the color of the enemy my chargrilled heart thought it was. And who knew that there were settings on the grill burners other than wide open?

So now I appreciate food even more. Many things have flavors other than “ode-de-charcoal with a hint of lighter fluid.” I have learned how to taste food, too well, if you have seen me lately. But I appreciate good flavors and enjoy experimenting with spices to bring out new taste-bud-delighting entrees.

The years have also taught me that my favorite meat is not necessarily steak. It’s chicken. Please send my apologies to Aunt Angus, but it’s just a close second now, missing first by a feather. You can do a lot of different things with chicken. Various spices and rubs and sauces make cooking fun. I’m in poultry paradise.

This is what made a recent lunch interesting. Herndon is filled with international souls and restaurants. I love it because Diane and I want to experiment with foods from around the world. It will all be authentic here, too, and not the Taco Bell of global delicacies (with apologies to TB - I still love your crunch wrap thingy).

I walked down the hill from my office to what I was told was a Mexican grill. The thing I know for sure is that it was definitely Latino. I want to say Mexican, but I think that would be pigeon-holing it too much. I'm still learning these lessons. Everything was Spanish. I mean EVERYTHING. I couldn’t read the menu. I couldn’t understand anyone in the restaurant, from cooks to order-takers to customers. I stood for at least five solid minutes thanking God for a menu that had pictures. But here’s the thing: I could not read any of the descriptions, and frankly, these were homemade pictures from a cheap Polaroid handed down by someone’s grandma who claimed it still worked perfectly when she passed it on to the restaurant owner in 1972.

I could not tell what anything was. Seriously. I got out my glasses. Point confirmed. I had no clue what anything was, and none of the descriptor words made any sense to me. I went to the counter to place my order. I wanted a number 25. I guess my fingers don’t speak Spanish either. I tried gesturing a two and a five while effortlessly saying twenty-five. The girl was kind and apparently sympathetic. She showed me a better-produced menu only in that the pictures looked more like food. The numbers were situated similarly to how the bigger pictures on the wall were aligned, so I just pointed. I pointed to what I thought was number 25.

Is that what I actually ordered? I couldn’t tell. All I know is that I pointed to something that I think had chicken in it. When I got my plate, it didn’t look at all like the picture. I was kinda glad about that. But this did nothing to solve my dilemma that was asking me inside, “What the hell are you about to eat?”

The only solution was to try it. What I thought was a nachos-type dish was more like Chiquitos. And there was a kind-of-white-ish-looking meat inside of it. I took a bite. Nope. Can’t tell. Another. Sorry. What is this? Beats me. Two of my internal voices took over the conversation from there.

#1 - Is this going to kill us?

#2 - I don’t know, but just keep eating.

#1 - Why? We don’t know what this is!

#2 - If we sit here and keep making faces at our food, they’re going to kick us to the curb.

#1 - Is this chicken?

#2 - Shut up and eat. You’re embarrassing me.

#1 - Please be chicken. I hope this is chicken. I want it to be chicken. Why doesn’t it taste like chicken?

Voice #2 ran away, screaming and laughing as it fled the scene.

I don’t know what I had for lunch that day. To solve my dilemma, the apartment complex had a food truck outside that evening as they do periodically. It served Mexican food. At least this one came with a country label. I tried it. I had chicken nachos. They were wonderful, quite good. But I’m not gonna lie, the chicken tasted a bit differently than what I’m used to.

At least I think it was chicken.

I had cereal for breakfast on this day I'm describing. No guesswork was involved. After that, I have no clue what passed over the lips and past the gums and look out stomach - it was an authentic mystery meat Tuesday! All I know is that everything I had was cooked. It’s what mattered the most by the time my confused taste buds went to sleep.

At no point did I ask God to go ahead and send Jesus because I may have accidentally eaten something holy. Or unholy. Still don’t know. I’m just glad that I had a new adventure. A fun one. A confusing one, but a fun one.

Does all of this make me a more whole person? Actually, yes. I am getting a taste of a world I did not know existed. I have been out of the country before and have eaten things that were never defined for me. Not once has this killed me. It has enlightened me (although a better word might be enheavied). Most of my life has been lived in an American cocoon. My food-eating habits have always been strictly limited. I look forward to the day when I’ll be in God’s eternal presence. I often wonder what will be served. I hope God doesn’t explain everything I eat to me. What fun would that be if I knew it all? And if any of it is cooked, will it be the blackened "burnt offerings" of my early grilling years?

I don’t care. I won’t care. I’m looking forward to the mystery-filled bliss.

God,

I’ve written a silly post today. I know, nothing new. You showed me part of the world that day without my leaving the country. I didn’t understand it. The only skill I used was my pointing-at-the-menu one. But I learned. I didn’t learn a new language. I learned how to be perfectly comfortable while being in an uncomfortable situation. I don’t know what I had for lunch. I don’t care. You and I had a great time there. This makes me feel more complete.

Amen

And PS - I'm ready to learn to speak Spanish now.