The Foreign Service Journal, March 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 35 T he Foreign Service moves us every two to three years. The cities, languages and people may be new, but the familiar aromas wafting from a bubbling pot of Filipino adobo made frommy mother’s recipe tell me I’m home. In 2006 in La Paz, one month into my first tour, I made my mom’s recipes for the Marine Security Guards. That evening I promised them that I’d cook for the “Devil Dogs” every month for the rest of my career. Preparing meals for Marines grew into a full- blown addiction to feeding others. I had no idea almost 13 years ago that sharing family recipes would lead to incredible interna- tional culinary adventures. TheDepartment ofTaste Malene Ginete Carr was born into a Filipino-Ameri- can family in Germany while her father served in the U.S. Army. She’s a diehard University of Florida Gator and is busy most Saturdays during football season. She loves being a Foreign Service general services of- ficer and is currently serving in Caracas. She is married to Mark Carr, a Foreign Service officer, and the pair enjoy traveling the world in search of the next epic culinary adventure. A culinary adventure that started with her mother’s special recipes has given one FSO the power to thrive from post to post around the world. BY MAL ENE G I NETE CARR FOOD AND FITNESS IN THE FOREIGN SERVICE FOCUS One evening in Bolivia, I went out to a small restaurant that scrawled the day’s specials on a chalkboard. I worked up the nerve to ask the young chef inside if I could join his team. He must have had a wild side, as he agreed to let me, a stranger, in to play with knives. OK, maybe it was my offer to cook for free that made him amenable. I can still see his raised eyebrows as he asked, “Wait, you don’t want a job, you just want to cook for me?” “Yes, I just want to slice and dice to my heart’s content,” I replied. He knew I was a U.S. embassy employee, but no one else in the tiny restaurant did. I simmered in delicious anonymity. One kitchen was all it took to make me fall in love with the intense, creative, culinary environment. After that I cooked anywhere chefs would let me in and relished my delectable double life. I wore an American flag pin inside my coat collar as a secret reminder of my day job. Edible Stories During my second tour, in Iraq, I volunteered to teach an Eng- lish class as part of the embassy’s outreach program to Iraqi youth. Given creative control, I led the mission’s first cooking course in the Red Zone. The second-floor kitchen was warm, but quickly CUL INAI RE