Wanna hear a weird breakfast story? I like to try new things… cultural things, things that I wouldn’t get in the good old U.S. of A. Even if people tell me “this food is terrible,” I want to at least see just how bad it is.
Now first off, my favorite cultural food here in Ukraine is called Cirok (pronounced “seeROHK” but with a rolled “R”). I was introduced to Cirok by my friend and co-conspirator Rachel. It’s a cheese, like cream cheese but it’s softer, and kind of soggy. The taste is a bit reminiscent of cheesecake, but not quite. It’s really delicious (VKOOS-nuh in Russian).
Rachel’s serving suggestions include spreading it on pancakes or mixing it with bananas and yogurt. I’ve tried it on pancakes and it’s excellent. It makes a great creamy sweetener for lots of things. When I get a sweet tooth, I like a butter knife of Cirok right out of the package.
And that leads to the weird breakfast story. In Ukraine they sell many varieties of kasha, or as the fairytales say, porridge. Here they make hot cereal with wheat, oats, cornmeal, rice, buckwheat (just awful), and the list goes on.
One day, I came across a kasha I couldn’t place. It was a light brown grain, kind of round. Scientist that I am, I bought a pack. When I cooked it and mixed in some cirok and sugar, it was really quite good. Then I needed to know. What was this stuff? The writing was in Ukrainian, so I couldn’t look it up in my Russian dictionary. My Ukrainian friends didn’t know what it was by my description, so I finally brought the package to the boat and had someone read it.
You know what the mystery substance was? Flattened, dried peas. How’s that for the breakfast of champions? Yeah, it’s sold right there with other hot cereals. It didn’t taste like peas to me even when I knew what it was. Funny, that I actually liked it. Hmm, weirdo.
If I can over-spiritualize about dried peas, sometimes I think God leads us blindly on purpose. We cry that He’s not directing us, but He really is. He’s silent because if we knew the details, we might just decide not to follow. There’s a fun word for the experience of finding a treasure you weren’t looking for. The word is “Serendipity.” I think God may have all kinds of serendipity for us if we’ll just trust and let him lead, even if the path ahead is foggy.

¶ 5:43 PM

 Markus said...
Having just posted this to my blog, it dawned on me. You know that little nursery rhyme,
"Peas Porridge Hot,
Peas Porridge cold.
Peas Porridge in the pot
Nine days old."

Can't help but think it originated with this crazy kasha.  

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