day one: date night

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent. And this year, it's also day 1 of our 40 days of culinary care. We decided to start simple.

A couple at our church has had a rough couple of weeks. They've faced tough decisions, been working long hours, and feeling a bit run down. They needed a night out.

Since Suzy and I eat out so much (too much), we invested in a Peddler card (for The Peddler Steakhouse). You pay $100 and you get 10 punches. Each punch is good for one free meal with the purchase of another...a buy-one-get-one-free deal! So you can get two filets mignons for the price of one -  perfect for a date night!

We had one more punch left on our card, and we'd heard this couple talk about how much they love The Peddler's steaks, so we decided to give them our last punch. We figured it might give them an excuse to have a date night, relax a little, and enjoy a nice dinner out, even in the midst of a tough time.

We know we're not feeding the hungry or poor. We realize that this was no grand gesture or major effort or big sacrifice on our part. But we decided to start close. Going out for dinner is something we really enjoy, so we thought we would pass that along to some friends who would enjoy a night out and a good meal. After all...who wouldn't?

forty days of culinary care

Chocolate. Alcohol. Meat. Sweet tea.

These are just a few of the things that I’ve given up in past years for Lent. But this year I wanted to do it differently. Enter: my brilliant wife. Suzy came up with the idea of blogging through these 40 days of Lent, finding ways to care for others using food.

So here’s what we’re going to do:

40 days of Culinary Care. Each day of Lent*—Ash Wednesday (February 22^nd this year) through Holy Saturday (April 7^th this year)—we are going to share love by sharing food. Sometimes we’ll be cooking. Sometimes we’ll be donating. Sometimes we’ll be serving. Sometimes we’ll be getting really creative, because it’s hard to think of 40 different ways to do this.

I’ll be blogging each day to share what we’ve done. I feel kind of weird doing. It feels a little pretentious and self-righteous. Please understand: I don’t have any delusions that what we’re doing will change the world, or even that it will be all that meaningful (for us or anybody else). Honestly, I just thought it was a cool idea when Suzy suggested it.

I am hoping, however, that this undertaking will give me some discipline during these seven-ish weeks. I am hoping that it will make me more intentional in my Lenten journey, more aware of how I use food (to show love, to feel comforted, to display status or power, etc.), and maybe even more aware of how the accessibility of food is a justice issue—not just on a global scale, but in my everyday, normal, routine lives.

I’m sure that I will stumble my way through these 40 days. There will be times when I will screw it up or miss the point; when my hypocrisy will be exposed; when I will not feel like doing anything at all and will just go through the drudgery of whatever we have planned, simply so that I can post something here. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to watch the idea unfold, and to see where it takes us.

Hopefully, by the end of this season, we will be able to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8).

*Sundays are not included in the 40 days of Lent, because Sunday is always supposed to be a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. That’s why they are called the Sundays in Lent, not the Sundays of Lent.