Last night I did something inherently reckless and never realized it until someone asked me a simple question. Last evening was the Maundy Thursday dinner at our church and when deciding the side dishes for the meal I suggested lemon risotto, because I love risotto. I also looked up if it could be made in the oven as we needed to feed around 60 to 75 people. Low and behold it can be.
That was the last I thought about the recipe until it was time to make it, and I will admit I never fully looked at the recipe either. I was just checking to see if it could be done, and I discovered it could be. For most of the night I never thought about this fact. I just made the recipe, adjusted when needed, and did the job of making the food.
I don’t know if I was just blindly trusting an online recipe or what exactly was wrong with me that I never even thought to test it, but it wasn’t until someone asked if I’d ever made it before and I answered, “Nope, first time,” and went back to emulsifying the butter, cheese, and liquid that I realized this was a crazy thing to do. The first time I ever made the recipe was for a room of 60+ people.
It wasn’t the first nor will it be the last time I make a risotto and honestly I could have done better. I didn’t add enough lemon zest or juice, the herbs I used were kind of haphazardly thrown on there, and I could have used a much better parmesan cheese. There was a lot I could have done to improve the dish, but I wanted to follow the recipe and I didn’t do the shopping, and didn’t want to get involved in that.
Everyone seemed to like the risotto and it was ok. It wasn’t my best work, but it is better than people normally get at a church meal. I also now understand why I terrify some of the people in the Fellowship Committee. It was brash and reckless to take a recipe I’d never done and charge blindly into the breach for the first time that evening. Again I will state, in my defense, that I know how a risotto should turn out and what a finished product looks like. We just need to add that recipe to the rotation and improve on it next time we do it.
My only wish is we had more dinners like that at church. I’d really like to do an open table event at some point where we invite in the community at large and feed everyone that comes, no questions asked, with no charge only voluntary donations.
Mentioning that brings up another point that I’ve never once mentioned that idea to anyone. Ideas don’t happen unless you let them out of your head.
David Huzzard Writes 