Pickles!

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:6

So yes, Pickles is a strange title for a blog, but I do however write about a soup kitchen…hahaha! The last several times we’ve had a truck come from the food bank to distribute food there have been a plethora (I love this word) of cucumbers. Patrons have received a flat of vegetables that included cucumbers. Additionally, we’ve put more cucumbers in the food boxes from cases that are delivered. Here’s the thing; there’s only so much you can do with a cucumber. It’s not a vegetable you put in soup, freeze to use later, bake in a casserole or even fry, and here in the south they fry everything! It’s basically something you toss in a salad or eat raw on it’s own. However, if you add salt! 

Salt is used in to enhance and bring out the flavor of the food you are cooking. Adding a pinch to cookie or cake batter takes away the bitterness and increases the sweetness. Adding it to fruits like tomato, watermelon or cantaloupe also enhances the taste. Salt helps tenderize and boost the flavors of meats and gives soups a perception of thickness by giving it a fuller, more rounded flavor. When added to cucumbers, along with a few other ingredients….Pickles! They do fry those! LOL!

In the case of these cucumbers that seemingly had only one preparation, adding just the right amount of salt, transformed them into pickles. As we serve at Cafe Central our goal is to use just the right amount of salt. Colossians 4:5-6 reads…”Be wise in the way you act toward others; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Unseasoned words and conversations take away from our goal of sharing the gospel with those we meet. When the wrong amount of salt is added, or even no salt at all, it can ruin a dish. It can mean a lost opportunity to do our small part in preserving and transforming people for Christ.

Jesus is about making pickles! Transforming something that was seemingly good for one thing into something that can be “seasoned with salt” and preserved for a lifetime.

Until we “read” again….God Bless!

You can give through our website:  https://cafecentralmilledgeville.org/give/

Or mail a check payable to: Café Central, 500 Underwood Rd, Milledgeville, GA 31061

Stephannie Shelton

Stephannie and her husband Doug have been volunteering at Cafe Central for 6 years. They moved from Colorado to Milledgeville Georgia in 2015. That year during Sunday service, the announcement that Cafe Central needed extra help for their Thanksgiving service, brought them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. They have now served weekly since January 2016. Doug is the volunteer coordinator and member of the Cafe Central Board. Stephannie just likes to talk to, and about, the “family” Cafe Central has become.