Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. (Romans 12:9, 10 NLT)

I’m a big fan of Masterchef, a competition between America’s best home cooks! Last Wednesday, America learned who the new Masterchef is: an Italian and NYC restaurant manager named Luca Manfe, whose American dream came true. For the second consecutive year, the home cook I’ve been rooting for wins the whole enchilada: a quarter of a million dollars, a cookbook, and as Gordon Ramsay loves to say in his British accent “the most prestigious trophy in the culinary world and the title of Masterchef.” I couldn’t have been more proud of this year’s winner, not only because he is off the boat Italian like my father, but because of his genuine kindness and generosity towards others during the competition which at times became gruesome. Luca never spoke ill of anyone while the other competitors threw insults at each other. Every time there was a challenge, the cooks were given 5-10 minutes in the pantry to pick their ingredients. However, they were not allowed in the pantry again once they start cooking, which means a few times the home cooks would forget an ingredient. The two times this happened, Luca graciously helped his competitors by providing the ingredients to them. In the past, this has served as a way to get rid of someone, but Luca wanted to lose fair and square, not because a competitor forgot an ingredient. He celebrated others’ triumphs and would empathize with whoever got eliminated that week. His humility to accept constructive criticism from the judges and his passion for the kitchen and the art of cooking helped him become the new Masterchef! In my eyes, Luca exemplified Romans 12. He may have not liked his peers, but he tried to do what was right even if he risked elimination.

For the past week, Romans 12 has been following me everywhere! The message to love without hypocrisy and to cling to what’s good is one that we are all familiar with, yet it is also the most difficult to practice. How can we love what’s not lovable? Even Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us because: “if you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:46-48 NLT). Note: We are not perfect, but we ARE to be perfect. God doesn’t expect perfection from us, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to attain excellence in all that we do.

Again, we’ve all read it in the Bible or in some devotional book, or we’ve heard the preacher talk about it on Sunday. The news are out! We must love those we don’t like. But practically, what does that mean?

You know that person at work that makes it more difficult for us to do our job? Let’s love them by praying for them and asking God to shower blessings upon them. How about that family member who mocks our faith and thinks we’ve lost our minds? Same answer applies, we should love them and pray for them, may God reveal His presence to those who doubt. How about a friend who has betrayed our trust? Do you want to take a guess as to what the answer to this one is?

How about a server who wants nothing do with us? Well, that was our experience at a restaurant last week, ironically named Michael’s Genuine. Located in the Art District in Miami, Michael’s Genuine is owned by a man named Michael Schwartz and the reason he’s called his restaurant genuine clearly isn’t because of the service, but the food. The food is all organically grown and simply creative, delicious… and overpriced.

Food: 4
Service: -5
Ambiance: 3

We understood what they were all about the moment we sat down. Kenny and I invited a couple from work to join us to another culinary adventure. The location is very up and coming since I know the city has been trying to clean the area for a long time. Ten years ago I attended high school around this area, and let me tell you, it was a dump! Although there’s still some work to do, the Art District is looking pretty good and why not add a very chic restaurant with an overpriced menu and arrogant servers? And there’s Michael’s Genuine for you!

The menu had very interesting selections but they were all categorized as small plates, medium plates, large plates, and extra-large plates. Except small was more like extra-small, medium was small, large was medium, and extra-large was large. All sides were about $8 dollars additional to the entrees. Since we were four, we were trying to figure out how to get a bunch of plates and share. Our server didn’t even introduce himself. He asked if we wanted alcoholic beverages and we said no (one person in our party is underage). He insisted and kept talking about alcoholic beverages. My friend ordered an iced tea, our other friend Richard asked for a house made soda with candied ginger and an iced tea, and Kenny asked for a root beer. Our server, defeated, went to get our beverages. Looking at the menu we were still trying to figure out our appetizers. Our server came back to take our order, but there was no interest in upselling or suggesting anything. We asked for a few more minutes. Then he came back. We started out with two small plates: the Greek Farro salad with French feta cheese and house made ricotta cheese and tamarind jam on a crostini. A few minutes later, our server came back to take the rest of the order and we said we were going to wait for the first two appetizers to come out. He looked at one of our friends and said “Sweetie, what are you having?” And she looked at us and looked back and said “whatever they are having.” So he asked Richard and Kenny jumped in and ordered their house made Fettuccini Bolognese and their Crispy Sweet & Spicy Pork Belly. The server kept pushing us to order more so I ordered the Pork Shoulder and Richard got the leg of lamb. The server looked at Richard and asked him if we wanted sides and Kenny interrupted and asked for their garlic mash potatoes and the roasted okra. The server looked at Kenny and said: “Does your friend want any sides?”

Honestly, the food was good but again, the server was not friendly and didn’t even check on us as we were eating. That ruined our experience. I don’t even remember eating the food so I can’t describe anything…that’s how important service is. I just ate because I wanted to get out of there. We had two desserts: their guava sorbet and the Passionfruit Pot de Creme with warm coconut doughnuts and a lemon-lime marmalade. When we asked for our desserts, the server warned us that the pot de creme only came with two doughnuts and he offered to give us two more for an up charge. We asked how much the up charge was and he didn’t know the answer! He came back and said it would be 10 dollars! So we said no. Both desserts were ok, the sorbet was $10 and the pot de creme $12…with the extra two doughnuts it would have been $22!! Not worth it!

Finally we gave him 2 cards and asked him to split our check evenly and he seemed bothered by that. When he saw the tip though, he came back with a smile and said “thanks, hope to see you again!” And that was the first time we saw him smile and it will probably be the last…

Someone asked me why we left him over 20% gratuity and I replied that I love confusing people with generosity, especially when they know they didn’t deserve it! He was expecting us to give him a horrible tip, but a nice tip with a “Jesus loves you” was a better lesson for him.

Being a server, I’m guilty of stereotyping too. But my most memorable lessons were when someone would bless me with a nice tip or an encouraging note when I wasn’t expecting it. Those are the ones that stick with you. We may have not liked our server, but we still had to learn to love him…genuinely.

We can pretend to love someone, but when we add the word genuinely after, the challenge becomes almost impossible.

My favorite part of the restaurant was the definition of genuine in the bottom of the menu: actual, real, or true; not false or fake; sincere and honest; without pretense. May our love for others be all those things and more, without conditions.