DINING WITH JOY

When Joy was growing up in Oklahoma, she felt like her dad loved food more than her or her mom (Rosie). He seemed to prioritize coming up with more recipes for his cooking show (“Dining with Charles Ballard”) over her softball games. Joy opened her heart to her college boyfriend (Tim), but when he broke up with her, she ran off to London to study creative writing. Once her dad started showing signs of failing health, she came back to the States and took on a producer role for his cooking show. One year later, Charles died from a heart attack. On his deathbed, Charles asked Joy to take over the show for him.

Joy did not inherit Charles’s talent for cooking, but she did inherit his charm and ability to entertain when cameras are rolling. She honored her father’s request by becoming the new host, turning the show into “Dining with Joy”. Joy’s secret (of not being able to cook) is kept silent among the staff.

When Joy agrees to host a fundraiser cooking event, her cunning rival Wenda Divine (host of the show “Cook-Off!”) challenges her to a live cook-off. Joy freezes, but luckily Luke (the handsome former chef of a restaurant named Ami’s before it went bankrupt) helps her out. Together, they prepare amazing dishes that use the secret ingredient: peaches. Joy is so relieved that she kisses Luke on the set. This kiss gets posted on YouTube and becomes viral.

“Dining with Joy”’s director (Duncan) sells the show to Allison (an entrepreneur who is hungry for success) so that he can move on to his passion for directing movies. Allison hires Luke as Joy’s co-host in hopes that their romance will spice up the show. For awhile, Joy struggles with whether or not she could trust Allison or Luke with her secret. Luke figures it out for himself, and like the gentleman he is, he offers to teach Joy what he knows. Fully believing that she can do more than she believes.

Because Joy carried on the charade with Allison and the public, Joy gets trapped in a dilemma on the Bette Hudson Show. In an attempt to add drama to up the view count, Wenda Divine challenges Joy to a live re-match, and this time, Luke isn’t around to save her. Because Wenda suspected that Joy was a fraud, this time she selected the challenge to be chili (which was something that Joy had “made” on “Dining with Joy” before and should be able to dominate). However, Joy made mistakes that no true chef would make (such as not browning the meat before adding the tomatoes and beans). Joy’s reputation crashes and burns, and she loses her job as host. A few days later, Wenda gets offered her position, and the show becomes “Dining with Divine”.

Back

Things can work out in unexpected ways.

Luke gets hired as the head chef for a restaurant in Maine. There, he allows some of Charles’s recipes to live on.

“Dining with Divine” later gets canceled (proving that deceit and manipulation to put others down aren’t worth it).

Joy had been taking care of her brother’s (Sawyer’s) two daughters (15-year-old Lyric and 9-year-old Annie-Rae) while he and his wife (Mindy) pursued their dreams of becoming Las Vegas performers. Lyric reminded Joy of herself as she rebelled and occasionally snuck off with a boy (Parker) despite “parental” warning. When Lyric got into a car accident from riding in the back of Parker’s truck, it was finally revealed to her how Parker didn’t have much of a backbone or true devotion to her, and Sawyer and Mindy realized how much they missed their daughters. Sawyer and Mindy decided that they finally saved up enough and could rearrange their schedules to take care of their daughters, so they brought the girls to join them in Las Vegas. Joy’s mom also just started dating another man for the first time in years, so she wasn’t as lonely. Joy no longer had anything holding her back in Oklahoma, and she no longer had to worry about being exposed as a fraud. She was completely open to wherever God wanted her to go. Joy finally started learning to cook all by herself (following her father’s recipes), and then she traveled to Maine to be with Luke (and marry him).

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We can’t expect to grow in faith overnight.

“Faith in God is a journey, a marathon. We want it to be a sprint” (192).

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We can misinterpret people’s own ways of showing love.

Joy’s father’s love language was food. He paid attention to which recipes were Joy’s favorites and which recipes didn’t get the reaction from her that he wanted and thus needed altering. He cooked for her not just to nourish her, but as his way of providing a gift to celebrate her milestones.

This perspective became more clear as Joy and Luke read through Charles’s notes in his secret cookbook (which he had stashed in a box labeled “Taxes”):

“Luke turned to the next marked page. ‘July sixteenth. Perfected my banana bread recipe by adjusting the flour and baking soda measurements. Made it for Joy. She loves banana bread. Rosie called from the field saying Joy pitched a no-hitter. Guess I forgot her game again.’ // Silence. Then, ‘He missed my game to adjust flour and baking soda measurements. See what I was up against?’ // Luke closed the book, marking his place with his thumb. ‘Don’t you see, Joy? Your dad wasn’t measuring just flour and baking soda. He was crafting a gift for you’” (192-193).

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Distinct recipes can anchor you to specific memories.

Think of Paska bread, a DQ ice cream cake, and wigilia’s potato casserole.

“‘Let’s add your memories to the book we’re putting together, Joy. Of Ballard family picnics. Of working with your dad on the show…’ .// ‘Luke, who’s going to make Daddy’s barbecue ribs recipe if I write, ‘I hated my daddy when he spent eight hours in the kitchen working on his barbecue sauces. But here it is for y’all. Hope your family loves it.’ // ‘No, Joy, write how it makes you feel now. Write how it made you feel when you ate the ribs. Pleasant memories are buried in your heart, Joy. I know it. Like the apples with chocolate and caramel. Sweet and tart. You remembered Halloween, dunking apples, a yard full of friends’” (195).