You’re invited to plan a vacation and visit us this summer in Coastal Virginia. When you do, be our guest for dinner at the Bloomshire of Gloucester. Chef Brad (me) will prepare a healthy and flavorful meal especially for you. See me personally at this year’s BRMCWC to make your reservation.

We live near Historic Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg. Woven into the history here are all kinds of written accounts of food. One can explore our nation’s heritage through the gastronomical traditions being passed down today to future generations. Just miles from my home where we’ve developed a training garden to help people discover the spiritual and physical benefits of growing vegetables, the National Park Service has a future park, Werowocomoco. It’s the cultural and archeological site of Native American leader Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas. Adjectives like fresh, authentic and natural are virtually nouns around here.

You can see how this combined with local seafood (that I can literally pluck from the water as I kayak) all play a role in my skills of meal selection, preparation and presentation.

Those skills are applicable to the writing we do. What we choose to write, how we write it and the way we deliver it to others are all key to a gourmet reading experience that will make people want to come back for more.

Here are five foodie tips that I recommend you incorporate into your professional development as a Christian writer:

• 1. DISCOVER INGREDIENTS

Did you know lavender isn’t just a soap fragrance – you can cook with it. I put fresh lavender from our English garden on grilled chicken — Oh yeah! Other herbs along with spices, fruits, vegetables, wild meats as well as special cheeses all lead to flavorful ventures.

Get mouths salivating for the special writing you can cook as you find and incorporate ingredients that you’ve never used. Beyond the five essential story ingredientsof orientation, crisis, escalation, discovery andchangeyou need to find new ways to add some BAM! Start with a simple search like, “How to spice up your writing”. However, like real cooking you’ve got to continually sample new things, cook with it and decide how much to use.

• 2. TRY DIFFERENT RECIPES

Lest you think this is redundant with ‘discover ingredients’, let me use a food example to help you visualize the difference. Last year my wife and I went to the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello. We sampled fifty different varieties of tomatoes (the ingredients)— they all tasted different. Later in the year we went to a chili cook-off (the recipes). Ingredients are the raw elements. Recipes are what you do with them.

To further visualize just how “recipes” can make your writing such an incredibly diverse and robust experience think about the accordion. That staple instrument of polka music has been found in some unexpected placesincluding contemporary Christian music. Rend Collective’s “recipe” is totally different from the Stereo Loveappetizer or the classic dishes of Lawrence Welk.

A winning recipe for your writing requires experimentation, lots of tasting, a good knowledge of how it all cooks together and I believe some divine vision that ultimately gets you saying, “Yes, that’s it!”

• 3. MARINATE

I like a good steak. But, even the best cut of beef can be dull and tough when grilled without being marinated properly.  The word means to soak or immerse in a brine to flavor and tenderize. The process can actually make the meat juicier. Here’s the deal, you must marinate for at least thirty minutes and up to two hours. Going over that with an acidic marinade may actually make the meat tougher. For most meals this is the main course so it really needs to be done right.

Apply this to your writing. Put it away after you’ve been writing for a while. Turn the computer off and do something different. Give yourself time to absorb the flavor – time for the mechanical process of writing to soften. Don’t leave it for too long. You’ll discover that well-marinated writing produces both subtle nuances and bold savor.

• 4. DON’T OVERCOOK

Properly steamed broccoli should be bright green and pleasantly firm. Do it right and the flavor pops exposing God’s simplest of healthy eats. Do it wrong and you have brownish, soggy mush.

Writing is an active process. Pay attention and do it well. When God gives you incredible ingredients from the beginning it doesn’t take much to deliver a great finished result. Know what parts of your writing need laborious detail and what simply needs to be removed from the heat and served without anything further.

• 5. PUT IT OUT THERE – TIME TO EAT

For many cooks AND writers this is the moment most feared. Instead, it should be the time most eagerly anticipated and celebrated. Trust that God has guided you through the entire cooking process then serve it to those who have been eagerly anticipating. Don’t just ‘put it on the table’. Give thanks, then sit, sup with your guests and engage in the rich conversationsthat are built around the delicious feast you have prepared.

Brad Bloom, Publisher of Faith & Fitness Magazine, Shout! Outdoor Lifestyle Magazine and map Travel Lifestyle Magazine. 

He is president of Lifestyle Media Group, a ministry that develops and distributes content to help people fuel their passion to connect daily living and Christian faith. Bloom draws a distinct difference between secular and his faith-centered brands, “Life should be lived way beyond training harder, living adventurously and going further. That’s all good but God is great. We can be equipped to be great when we get beyond all the doing and actively Be Life – the life of Christ to others.”