Episode 1648: Interview with Tommi Vincent About The Connection Between Food and Faith

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,648 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Tommi Vincent: I'm Tommi Vincent. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to know you are worthy is key and one way.

To be inspired to do that is to listen to this the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

I'm gonna use my experience I of being a thriving, uh, survivor of domestic violence. I was in a domestic violence relationship that culminated with the abuser lifting me up to, [00:01:00] uh, throw me off of a bridge in that moment. I knew I wanted to live.

Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's podcast episode, I interviewed Tommy Vincent. I asked Tommy about her book The Table of Life. I also asked Tommy about why faith and food are intertwined for her. And Tommy also shares with you why her Stay a while. Podcast is all about using food as a tool for healing. I have a great book that's been out [00:02:00] for a while now called Inspired Living.

Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there. I'd love to see you.

Get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Tommy a Vincent is a chef, speaker, and advocate dedicated to empowering women in ending domestic violence, A sought after voice on resilience, leadership, and living with purpose. She helps women cultivate confidence and balance without the superwoman cape.

Through her workshops, retreats, and stay a while. Podcast. Tommy uses food as a tool for healing, inviting people to gather around the table, to share stories, faith and authenticity. Drawing from her own journey through trauma and depression, she brings hard [00:03:00] one. Lessons on grace, growth and self-worth to every conversation at home.

Tommy Treasure's time spent with her husband

Troy. Their children and loved ones creating new memories through their family initiative. Vincent Country.

Welcome to the show, Tommy.

Tommi Vincent: Thank you, Scott. I'm so glad to be here.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. So I talked a little bit in the intro about some of the work you do around empowering women.

Domestic violence. You you got a podcast, a book, you know, all of these different things. And yet I always think it's funny because intros kind of tell us the end of the journey, but they don't tell us the path to get there. So take us back in time a little bit and share a little bit more about your journey and what has brought you to the point where this is the, the work you feel called to do and the message you feel called to put out.

Tommi Vincent: Thank you, Scott. So for me, the [00:04:00] journey is everything, because the journey is what sets the pathway for us to be able to really walk into what I believe to be what God is calling us to do or what he's chosen us to do on the earth. And so for me. Everything that I have been able to accomplish today is a result of an experience that I had with about a depression.

And I had spent I'm married now 32 years, and I have an amazing husband. I have five amazing children, and I spent many years investing in them, which was. My greatest joy for a very long time. What I didn't realize in the process that it's also necessary to simultaneously make a self investment and to make sure I'm doing things to cultivate myself and develop me and the various areas and giftings that [00:05:00] are inside of me.

And I was not doing that. As a result of that, along with, because that's not the only thing, you know, as you live life, you have a lot of experiences and we tend to tuck stuff away. So tucking tucking, and not cultivating I, uh, the lights went out for me, or that's the way I describe it. The lights went out and I went through therapy and a lot of prayer came out on the other side.

And when I emerged on the other side. I believe that this could not be only a situation isolated to me in how I navigated life, and so I wanted to make sure that I presented myself as a solution for other women. To walk alongside them, to navigate through life's terrain so that they could flourish and become everything that God created them to be.

And so I became a certified life coach. I started women's [00:06:00] retreats. I started a podcast. All the things. So that I would have an opportunity to create spaces, to have conversations, to share, bought sense because I already paid the price. And give women an opportunity to e experience life through my lens.

Hopefully given them an opportunity to see themselves in the process.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm. When, you know, I think a lot of coaches have experiences that they go through that then comes out in the work they do in, in, in terms of kinda that feeling of, well, I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through do you feel like that was kind of some of the direction, or, or where was it coming from?

Tommi Vincent: Well, I don't believe that I have the power to stop somebody from experiencing anything in life. Mm-hmm. Their life is their life, but what I can do is share [00:07:00] my experiences and people get to choose on how they take information that they receive and apply it or not to their lives.

And so for me, it's just an opportunity to share. I, I believe that if we were to have more conversations, we realize that we are more alike than different. That we have similar experiences and we walk through similar pathways, different, you know, we might come from different regions, we might come from different backgrounds.

We might have different cultural differences. All of that is rel relevant to who we are as a person. But when there's life at play, everyone experiences life in their space. And I think if we talk more, we would be a greater benefit to one another.

Scott Maderer: So one of the things I like to highlight on the show is sort of the intersection between our faith journey, whatever that is, and our life journey, and then how our life journey affects [00:08:00] our faith journey.

And I, you know, I kind of believe there's a feedback loop between those two things. For you, how has, how has your life journey and your faith journey intersected and influenced each other?

Tommi Vincent: I, you know what, Scott, I wouldn't even say there's an intersection. I would say that my faith is what is the foundation of my journey.

So it is the road I walk on as I'm living. And everything I do, I filter it through my faith because it's important for me to have what. My husband and I, we say, you know, it's important to have non-negotiables in life because if you don't have some type of filtration process, then you'll just be willy-nilly and going through life, and you might not always be making decisions that are in your best interest in evolving in who you've been created to be.

So my faith. Is the foundation of everything, and it allows for me to choose [00:09:00] opportunities and to also decline opportunities. It is something I use to walk through doors or to close doors. So it is, it is extremely instrumental in everything that I do.

Scott Maderer: So you wrote a book called The Table of Life and, and immediately, you know, the Table of Life brings.

Images to mind for people. You know, some people can think of family dinners, some people think of tables as something not necessarily of, you know, a good memory or a good experience as well. Mm-hmm. So why, why that? What brought about that message and that title and, and what, why this book, I guess is kind of the, the question.

Tommi Vincent: So when I. Was growing up, I had my grandmother, her name was. I called her Nana Edie, and she had this kitchen that I [00:10:00] likened to a water hole for the community. Everyone came by Miss Edie's, whether it was on their way to work or on their way home to work. She always had food on the stove and there was enough for any and everyone that came in and you could take a seat at her table and really, no matter what you were experiencing outside of.

Her kitchen and her table, it all melted away and you had an opportunity to savor the flavors of life that she presented in that kitchen. And so as I was going through my healing journey and walking through the valley, coming outta my experience of depression, I kept seeing this table and. When I came out on the other side, one of the things that I did is I went to culinary art school and I became a classically trained chef.

And so everything that I do, I present the table before people and I also love the opportunity to feed them. So I'm providing nourishment for their [00:11:00] mind, body, and their soul. And so the book, the Table of Life, nourishing the Soul with Food, love, and Faith, it is me. Teaching others how to build their own table, one dish at a time, using all of the ingredients of their life for me.

It wasn't until I realized that every single ingredient in my life, I don't care what the experience has been, the worst and the best, it all makes me who I am today. And so the table is where you get to come and you get to seat sit, and you get to eat and you get, you are able to be nourished and realize, you know what, by itself, this was horrific.

But when you mix it all together and you create your one of a kind dish, it's actually all right.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. I think, um for me I. My great-grandmother, by the way, was the table that you're talking about where everyone in the neighborhood came by. [00:12:00] And I can remember having Thanksgiving dinner down there and you know, the family's there, but by the end of the day, you know, 80 other people, you know, come through, come through and gotten something to eat, you know, it's like.

Where are all these people coming from? It's like I don't know any of these people. Where are they coming from? You know, and it was just all the, all the folks in the neighborhood and, and, uh, my grandfather worked in the oil field and, you know, as other oil field workers or rednecks that were down there or whatever, you know, it was just, it was.

Just people. Um, mm-hmm. But, uh, you know, at the as a young child, that was weird. You know, looking back on it now, it's kinda like, oh, that's kind of cool. But, you know, as a, as a little kid, 'cause I was pretty young at that point. It was like this is kind of weird. But yeah. And so that was kind of that same I have a similar memory or similar experience with, uh with food and, and with the sharing of the table.

Which I think. [00:13:00] Brings me to kind of the next question and, and you just touched on it a little bit, but I, I wanna give you a chance to, to unpack it a little bit more. Why, why is food useful to think about as a, as a metaphor for how we relate to other people, to, to our life, to our faith.

You know, for you, why is that a metaphor that, that you see power in.

Tommi Vincent: Everybody eats, so it's something that everyone can relate to. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't matter where you are in the globe. We need food to survive. And so everyone can relate to and they, they can consider a table, they can consider ingredients that are required to make a dish.

And so. Because it is such a big part of who I am, and it was such a major part of my healing journey. I, I, I, it's, it's like, this is what I [00:14:00] liken it to when I musicians, they see, they're able to pull notes together and they create this masterpiece, right? They compose this music. I look at ingredients and I'm able to pull them together and create these recipes.

That creation also, I believe, is a gift that God gave me to use a recipe to also teach life lessons. And so it is, it's relatable to every single person that walks in this earth.

Scott Maderer: My, my wife gets mad at me when I cook because about half the time she's, she's like, this is really good. Could you cook this again?

I'm like, I don't I'm not sure.

It kind of depends. Do we have the same stuff in the refrigerator when I start cooking? Because I just started digging around going, well, this will go good together. You know,

Tommi Vincent: you just [00:15:00] cooking, you cooking from your soul. You're cook. It's called, that type of cook is called a dump cook. That's what my grandmother was.

Yep. I'm, that's just, that's who, how I am as a cook. And it is it's one of those things where. You just feel it. You know it, you see it. A pinch of this, a pinch of that. But that's how we gotta tinker in life. You know? We gotta like figure out what is the recipe. Maybe it's not that the sugar is bad, it's just we're adding too much sugar.

Mm-hmm. So we gotta take a little bit of that out. Maybe our ambition is not bad, we're. We gotta pull back a little bit so that we don't allow for our ambition to sabotage what it is that we're looking to accomplish.

Scott Maderer: So I, I wanna ask you a question that, uh so you've been trained as a chef, you know, you have that bad experience, and then, like you've talked about, you also have that experience of a dump cook.

I love that expression, by the way. I'm gonna steal it and tell my wife, I'm just a dump cook. That's why, you know, [00:16:00] you're a

Tommi Vincent: unicorn.

Scott Maderer: She's gonna say, no, you're a dumb truck. That's what you're, but that, that's a whole nother, whole nother conversation. But, uh. As a chef, what do you think, and I'm trying to, I'm literally writing this question in my head as I ask it, but what do you think people miss when they come to and this may actually be part of the metaphor part, and it may just be about food and cooking.

I'm not sure yet, so go wherever you want to with it, but,

Tommi Vincent: okay.

Scott Maderer: What, what do people miss when they think about. Food and preparation and, and those sorts of things that, that somebody with the training and the understanding that somebody like a chef has, can look at and see maybe differently. Is that, does that make sense?

I'm not sure if my question makes sense.

Tommi Vincent: It, it does make sense. And so when, as a classically trained chef, when I went to culinary art school, [00:17:00] there was terminology that was being used. For techniques I learned from my grandmother.

And she, but she was not using that language,

So it was like, oh, this is just gravy but, you know, they're, they're naming the different types of sauces, the mother sauces, all these different kind of things.

And so I, I knew how to do it. However. Because I didn't have the language, if I wasn't in school learning, if someone would've said it, I would've thought, oh, I don't know how to make that.

And I believe that people have more experience than they realize, but because we filter our life through a lot of other mediums.

We're getting information from a lot of different places, we can count ourselves out. Mm-hmm. Because the language that's being used is not [00:18:00] familiar, but if they were to break it down into layman's terms and just talk about it in general, you would get the epiphany of, oh, I do know how to do that.

And so when cooking a classically trained chef is going to be more technical. Where someone like me and you as dump cooks, we're just going to get straight to it because we have a vision of what we wanna accomplish, and we're not afraid to just dump and pinch and pour to figure it out.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, the, the metaphor there is is obvious too, that I think a lot of times, and, and unfortunately I think a lot of.

Gurus and experts and teachers out there revel in using inside baseball language. You know that? Mm-hmm. You know, I, I understand [00:19:00] something that you don't understand because I know all these fancy words when, you know, where a lot of times it's like, oh, no, actually, people have an intuitive understanding of that.

Now maybe they don't have the scaffolding or the tools or the language or the, and that's where learning can do it. Can help with that. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's not I think about meditation even, you know, going through the experience of learning meditation helps you label feelings that you weren't aware of.

Not because you didn't have them, you know, but 'cause you weren't paying attention to them.

Tommi Vincent: Correct, yes.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. And I I think so it's not that the education's bad, but it's just, it's sometimes it's used almost as a, and I'm sure you see that in chefs too, that wanna use it as kind of a a shield of I know.

More than you, so to speak.

Tommi Vincent: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Scott Maderer: [00:20:00] So when you think about, the message that you put out, connect the dots from what we've been talking about with the table of life and cooking and food and, you know, all of these wonderful things, which I'll talk about food all day 'cause I love food, but.

To kind of the message you put out around empowering women and, and ending domestic violence and resilience and leadership and all of those, you know, the other dots in your message you know, draw the connection between those four us.

Tommi Vincent: So, I talked about how with, you know, recipes, there are all of these ingredients that come together to complete the recipe.

And I'm gonna use my experience of being a thriving survivor of domestic violence. I was in a domestic violence relationship that culminated with the, um, abuser lifting me up [00:21:00] to throw me off of a bridge. And in that moment I knew I wanted to live. That's, I knew in that moment that I wanted to live.

And so when I was, I negotiated my way. Down from being picked up in the air to down, and I walked away from that situation. I didn't walk away unscathed, but I walked away with an experience. That for a very long time, I did not consider how it impacted me. And I looked at that situation and I looked at everything that was wrong with it, and I never took the time to examine.

What was right with it? Mm. And so in the book I talk about, you know, when we're looking at situations, we tend to look at the darkness. And when you look at darkness, you can't see, but if you look to find the light, all of a sudden everything opens up and you [00:22:00] can see everything. And so when I am thinking about other women, I want them for their first instinct to not look for what is wrong.

I want them to look for what is right even in the hard things, because in that situation, no one would've ever told me how resilient I would have become. No one would've ever told me how strong mentally. My mental toughness developed. I walked away thinking I was stupid, thinking that it was somehow my fault, which is a lie.

So I was believing all of these lies.

Scott Maderer: Mm-hmm.

Tommi Vincent: Because I was focusing on the darkness. But once the light came on, all of a sudden I saw just how amazing and phenomenal of a woman I was. And so getting women to be able to see that. I believe becomes a tool [00:23:00] for them so that as they're moving through life and they're experiencing the hard things, because the fact is life is hard, but the truth is we can do hard things.

And I demonstrated that and I, in the book, I'm showing you that about my life and giving you an opportunity to reflect on your own life and say, wait a minute, I also have done many hard things and this is what I gained from that experience. I'm not glorifying the experience. Mm-hmm. If I had to do it over again, I would not.

But it happened, and now I gotta figure out and find a way to move forward in life and not, and not allow one moment in time or a period of time. A very isolated period of time caused me to come, become stuck in my footsteps, preventing me from moving forward on this path that was laid for me to thrive on.

Scott Maderer: And, and I think for a lot of people, and you, you, you touched on this. [00:24:00] You know the difficulty with that is it feels like if I look for the good in a bad experience, then I'm saying a bad experience was good. You know, somehow you're, you are you're looking at the. The abuser and saying, oh, well this was justified, or this was good.

When you said very clearly that's not, you know, that's not what you're saying. Uh, talk a little bit more about that. 'cause I've, I know that that's, somebody's got that thought in their head and I want you to talk against it so that they don't keep it there.

Tommi Vincent: Yeah. I'm so glad you raised that point because No, that situation was not good, but I am.

I'm good enough, I'm worthy. So it's not about the situation nor the people who may be involved in a, a traumatic situation in your life because we have zero control over any of that. But what I do have control over is me and how I choose [00:25:00] to. Process information, how I choose to use what was meant to be harmful to me and turn it around so that it works for my good.

All of that is in my control. And so by looking for the light in a situation, what I'm saying is that was horrific. But I'm worthy of the best that I can extract from that situation so that I can use even the most horrific times of my life, and I can use it as fuel for my rocket so that I can launch into whatever it is that God has for me.

Mm-hmm.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else about your book or this work that you do that you'd like to leave with the listener?

Tommi Vincent: Scott? You know, I wanna put a pin on what I just said in that we're worthy. [00:26:00] And I, I, and that may, you know, there's sometimes language becomes so oversaturated in sound bites and in especially like throughout social media where you say these things and it's like cliche, but literally we're worthy.

And in my faith I subscribe to, a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so for me, when I say you're worthy, he it is evident in him choosing to die so that we might live. And so not only die, but to be raised again and, you know, seated at the right hand of the Father. And so for me, when I say that, it's because what he did demonstrates that I'm worthy.

It's not any, I don't have to do anything else in life, but what I do need to do is own that my worthiness, because that allows for us to take all of those [00:27:00] ingredients from our life to create this. Amazing dish and to build a table, not only where we're nourished, but we're also in a position to pull up some more chairs to ex put a leaf in, extend the table, and give other people an opportunity to come take a seat and be nourished at the table that we built as well.

Scott Maderer: So my brand is inspired stewardship, and I kind of run things through that lens of stewardship, and yet I've discovered over the years that that's one of those words that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So for you, when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

Tommi Vincent: Stewardship to me is how I'm managing what I've been given. Responsibly or irresponsibly multiplying it or subtracting from it. So to me, that's what stewardship is.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. [00:28:00] Uh, imagine for a moment that I could invent this magic machine, and with this machine, I could take you from where you are today and transport you into the future.

Maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the ripples, all of the connections, all of the impacts you've left. What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

Tommi Vincent: I hope that the impact that I've left in the world is so powerful that people.

Started at one point, and as a result of the impact that I had on their life, they were catapulted beyond anything they could ever think or imagine in a positive way.

Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you continue on this journey?

Tommi Vincent: I'm gonna continue to, um, as part of my book of the Table of life, one of the things that I [00:29:00] do is I go around the nation and I have dinners, um, where we talk the book.

And I also chef for the guests that join me at the table. And it is. My way of what I consider to be a book tour that has now turned into a part of what I do as an offering. So it's been, uh, wonderful and I'm gonna continue to do that to impact as many women as possible. And I'm gonna continue to do it in a very intimate way because I wanna make sure that I can engage with them and we can talk about things that matter.

And they have an opportunity to stay a while.

Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about Tommy Vincent over@tommyv.com and of course that's Tommy with an I. I'll have a link to that over in the show notes. So in case you can't find it or you're driving right now and can't write it down, you can check it out on the show [00:30:00] notes and you'll find a link there.

Tommy, what else would you like to share with the listener?

Tommi Vincent: I would like everyone to know that they can find the table of life. They can find it on my website as Scott just mentioned@tommyv.com. Or they can purchase it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and on social media. My um, handle is at Chef Tommy and that's T-O-M-M-I-V and you can find me on all social media platforms using that handle.

Scott Maderer: Awesome. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciated our conversation today.

Tommi Vincent: Thank you, Scott.

Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your [00:31:00] calling. If you enjoyed this episode. Please. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.