Life Through Lasagna Eyes

Life Through Lasagna Eyes: The Recipes for Life

When life throws you lemons, make something delicious.

I smile every time I think of this quote. In her book, Life Through Lasagna Eyes: The Recipes for Life, Samantha Kendall uses her own journey of pain and suffering to find ways to help others in need.

Everyone has a story of pain and suffering, but there is something special about learning to use that pain as a motivator instead of as a blanket. Fighting back from the brink of despair to a place of peace takes more than we have within ourselves. It takes a high power through us to lift us, heal us, and allow us to use our pain to help others that may be walking the same or similar path. As a Christian, I know that one day I will see my loved ones again, but until then; I have to keep living, loving and sharing my faith.

“Life is like lasagna – layers and layers,” says Kendall. “The layers are filled with love, humor, joy, laughter, and tears … each serving its purpose in the recipes of life.”

Life Through Lasagna Eyes: The Recipes for Life uses what Sam knows best, recipes to share her thoughts and advice. This book is a collection of recipes to live by. It is based on the pain and unimaginable suffering of a parent losing a child. Not just losing a child, but having them murdered. It all began shortly after Samʼs ex-husband left her and the children, her daughter Amanda was murdered on Valentineʼs Day 2006.

Samʼs story is bundled with the hope needed to boost you into finding your passion and soaring in the face of tragedy and heartbreak. Looking past current conditions allows anyone to look through different eyes; Samʼs is lasagna.

This book’s calling is to encourage those that have experienced live changing loss or heartbreak to live again. Not just live again, but to move beyond the pain and to a place of being able to help someone else.

This book is in memory of Amanda Skie Gallon and Sam dedicates this book to victims of violence, their families and the many lives that are touched on such acts.

Here is a beautiful excerpt from the book: Chapter Three: The Sauce
Recipe #3 – Enlarge Your Life! Add to it! Feel Normal Again!
A good chef knows that sauce is the star to complete an entrée. Ever gone to a barbecue and there was no sauce; Pizza with no sauce; Turkey with no gravy; Lasagna with no sauce; Ice Cream with no chocolate sauce? The sauce is synonymous to feeling good. In the discovery of your passion, there is the A-Ha moment that makes you feel complete. When it comes to the sauce, sometimes no entrée is needed. To put it simply, it is pleasurable to taste just by dipping your finger in it and enjoying Mmm!

The sauce is steady. It provides flexibility to the noodle, adding life to it and allowing the natural taste to emerge. While creating your sauce, you feel alive in the A-Ha moment and no one can take that away from you.

Assembling requires the entire you, but the base, life in the noodle, and the sauce will always support your passion, purpose, and who you are! For instance, in the layers on top of the sauce, you can add the bitterness you once felt and balance it with forgiveness.

Now you can build on top of the sauce. You can add hate and balance it with love. I threw my whole self in lasagna. Picture yourself swimming with joy, laughing, being strengthened, dancing, and loving in your passion. I saw Life Through Lasagna Eyes!

…And it saw me!

The sauce is not complete with just tomatoes; other ingredients are needed to expand the taste. These ingredients are all of the accomplishments you have made. When tragedy or heartbreak hits, it subtracts ingredients in your life, leaving you to feel empty and lopsided.

Hold on, itʼs time to enlarge your life!

Your journeyʼs ingredients are to help you discover yourself and your passion. Filter the pain and dance. Seriously! Yes, now dance. When I did it, I laughed to myself saying, “What a goofy move, but hot grits and potatoes, it feels good to dance like this.” The goofier, the better! Release some of the tension so you can focus on the structure of your sauce.

The framework of filtering and enlarging your life begins with forgiveness. Forgive the person that crushed your heart. Forgive the person that murdered your child. Forgive the person that ruined your lawn. Forgive, forgive, forgive! Be strong and courageous. In my case, forgiveness did not mean that memories of my child and moments I remembered when she was in the womb would not be there. The truth of the manner is the pain will always be there.

However, this is one way you can deal with it through rediscovering and enlarging your life by finding your passion; Pray and open up about where you are in life; begin a Non-Profit organization, start journaling, write a book, start a fund in your family that helps send your younger relatives to college, join a book club, embrace a new sport. These are just examples of how to enhance your journey.

Be courageous like sauce! The sauce is bold when all the ingredients are blended together. Donʼt waste another moment in your grief, wipe your face and get up from where you are!

Amandaʼs murder paralyzed me. It made me numb. The problem was not being numb; it was when the numbness wore off. Like Novocain at a dental office, once it wears off, the excruciating pain hits you like a ton of bricks. Youʼre more sensitive to the inexpressible pain. Heartbreak can shock your system into a paralyzed state to which would also, at some point, wear off.

The sauce is amazing in assuring that something great will follow your pain. You have much to look forward to. Your success and feeling normal again. Even falling in love.

The sauce is solid. It does not matter the entree it tops; itʼs the sauce.

Enlarging your life compliments a healthy and humble mindset. Once you have forgiven, itʼs time to add to your life and expand.

Samantha Kendall, a.k.a. the “Lasagna Lady” is from Chicago and is the founder of Sam’s Gourmet Lasagna. Kendall’s passion for keeping her family healthy resulted in a variety of recipes using the same layering technique of her children’s favorite meal – lasagna. Now the “Lasagna Lady” takes layering her family’s favorite ingredients to a new level in the first of her Life Through Lasagna Eyes book series. In addition to being a talented chef, entrepreneur, and author, Kendall is also a motivational speaker.

For more information on where you can purchase Sam’s Gourmet Lasagna, please visit Sams Gourmet Lasagna online. Also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter for the latest announcements and news release updates.

To purchase a copy of Life Through Lasagna Eyes: The Recipes for Life, it is available on Amazon and at your local book stores.