Monday, September 5, 2011

Salsa Day!

Today is our annual salsa making day at our house.  Nearly everything in it comes form our garden.  Nadine and I have made salsa for years and each batch is good while a little different from the others.

Life is like crafting salsa from scratch-- you expect the best but you never know what you're gonna get.

Every "Mexican" restaurant offers you salsa and chips.  I reflect on the salsas that have been set before me --   the salsas of my life.  Many were unremarkable, a predictable combination of sweet and heat.  However, I remember two salsas that represent the bookends of life experience of sad disappointment and surprising life change.

The former happened several years ago when the server set down a basket of freshly fried chips and a cold squeeze bottle of red paste.  Enjoying salsa and chips is not supposed to remind the diner of preparing to brush one's teeth.  This low point of my salsa experience was seared into my memory as I smeared a crimson bead across an otherwise worthy chip.  Oh well -- make the best of things until my fajita order arrives.

Years and bowls of salsa later came the moment in a little Colorado Springs cantina when the waiter brought us a bowl of something I had never seen before.  It was as much white as red and boy was it chunky!  My wife and stared at it for a moment before one of us tentatively dipped a chip and took a bite.  Cilantro, tomatoes, onions, and slivered cabbage.  Surprisingly delicious!  I broke chip after chip in my enthusiasm while Nadine scribbled an ingredient list onto the back of a Kroger receipt.  Since then it has been our privilege and joy to bring a bowl of "Ambrosia Salsa" to family gatherings.

But then there was the time in San Antonio when the cook added guacamole to his salsa recipe.  I believe that Guacamole could qualify as the tenth fruit of the Spirit.  Guacamole is good for you. The oil contained in avocados ranks among the healthiest types of fat.  The other ingredients in guacamole are highly alkalizing and loaded with phytonutrients.  Learn more at


Life is like a batch of salsa.  Whether life brings disappointment or ecstasy, look to God to stir in a special ingredient of His own and turn everything into something that is good for you.


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