The Gospel of Food Gulfport’s First United Methodist Church Offers Cooking Class

By Amanda Hagood

Ken Blackman, volunteer chef at First United Methodist Church of Gulfport, is no stranger to cooking for crowds. Every Sunday, he and other volunteers report to the church’s modest kitchen to prepare brunch for the congregation. On Wednesday, they simmer chili, bake ham, or fry schnitzel with trimmings for the weekly church dinner. Once a month, it’s breakfast for FUMC Men’s meeting, and last Thanksgiving, it was a full turkey dinner for a joyful crowd that filled the church’s Fellowship Hall.

That’s a lot of cooking, but Blackman doesn’t stress.

“It’s just natural to me,” he says. “I have all these recipes in the back of my head, and then I just go do it!”

Blackman has served meals for Gulfport’s FUMC for four years and cooked since age 6, when he fried his mom an egg for Mother’s Day. Since then, he says, “I’ve cooked wherever I’ve gone”: catering for groups and learning new cuisines while deployed with the U.S. Army in Germany and Vietnam. One of the most important meals he made was the spaghetti and meatballs with Italian sausage that he cooked to impress Jean.

It worked: They married 47 years ago.

There’s something special about cooking for Gulfport’s FUMC. The church has an open table policy, for both holy communion and the feasts Blackman prepares.

“There’s an instinct about church sometimes,” says Blackman. “People think: I have to be a member, I have to dress up.”

Not at First United.

“The church is open to anybody at any time. I will feed anybody who is hungry!” Blackman says, blue eyes sparkling behind his glasses.

His food ministry doesn’t stop there. In mid-February, Blackman will offer an eight-week course in the church’s kitchen, open to all. Students will learn to make 30-minute meals.

“I’m excited about teaching people to cook down-to-earth food they are going to enjoy and that’s going to be somewhat healthy for them,” he says. “I like to get them excited about cooking!”

The class will meet Tuesdays, 6-8 p.m. It’s free, but has a “final exam”: At the end, students will plan and prepare a dinner – which they will eat together.

“The last time I taught this class,” Blackman says, “they made a beautiful chicken meal!”

Instilling some culinary confidence in his students is an important part of why Blackman offers the course.

“Cooking is not hard. We make it hard,” he says, quoting an oft-repeated motto.

After a long life of feeding people, his sense of purpose is the most important ingredient in his cooking:

“I cook for God,” he says. “If I can show God’s presence in my cooking, that’s the most important thing.”

For more info, call 727-321-3620.