Nourishing the Crew

Morgan Georgioff is a professional chef in Oregon and desired to use her culinary talents as a ministry. She googled “cooking for Jesus internationally,” and was surprised to find Mercy Ships! After applying, Morgan was thrilled to join the crew on board the Global Mercy, volunteering as the galley team lead.

Now Morgan is growing as a chef and expanding her pallet as she learns about African cuisine as well as dishes from other parts of the world that the crew represent.

In this episode Morgan shares her joy as she makes the crew feel at home by cooking international comfort foods. She tells about the importance of healthful nutrition, the power of a good meal, and how she is training up the next generation of chefs by teaching cooking classes to the students on board.

Morgan’s interview will make you hungry and convince you that all the gifts and talents you have can be used to glorify God.

Looking for a way to join our mission of bringing hope and healing? Partner with us through a gift, volunteering with us, or by joining us in prayer.

New Mercies Podcast Transcript

Welcome to the New Mercies, a podcast by Mercy Ships, where we’ll take you behind the scenes and on board our incredible hospital ships that are transforming lives all over the world. We invite you to join us each week as we sit down with our crew, patients, volunteers, and partners to hear their stories of life-changing hope and healing.

Morgan Georgioff off was a professional chef in Oregon and desired to use her culinary talents as a ministry. After finding Mercy Ships, Morgan was excited to get on board and cook while expanding her own palate. Today, she’s going to tell us all about her experience on board cooking up hometown comfort foods while nourishing the crew. Here’s my interview with Morgan Georgioff.

Raeanne Newquist:

Morgan coming to us all the way from the Global Mercy and Dakar, Senegal, welcome to New Mercies.

Morgan Georgioff:

Thank you so much for having me.

Raeanne:

You were a chef in Oregon, before you came to volunteer on board the Global Mercy. So why don’t you start off by giving us a little bit of your culinary background. And then tell us about how you ended up volunteering on the Global Mercy.

Morgan:

Yes, it is quite the story. So I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. And the Lord called me to go to culinary school on the Oregon coast called the Christian Culinary Academy. And from there, I was called to go into fine dining. And I started working at this restaurant that was very high volume. It was attached to the biggest resort on the Canon Beach in the Oregon coast. And I worked on the line, I did some catering stuff for them. I was one of their bakers. And I went there as one of my internships meaning to be there for three months. And I ended up staying there for about four and a half years, which was way longer than I ever anticipated. And from there, I just felt like it was time to go on and do something different. I worked in a bakery for a little while, I worked at this very fine dining inn on the Oregon coast called the Stephanie inn, it was great for my culinary experience. But kitchens can often be very dark places a lot of drug abuse, a lot of sadness, a lot of loneliness, a lot of people have come to America and are just trying to be able to provide for their families, and you didn’t see a lot of Jesus. While that was great to have me to be able to be a light in there, it wasn’t really growing my relationship with the Lord. And I really felt like it was time to take a step back and kind of rethink things. And I had the opportunity to go live in Peru for a little while, and work in different restaurants down there live with different people and just work on learning how to cook Peruvian cuisine, which was something that I never would have imagined being able to do. But it was really that kind of first push to me wanting to go into missions. It was really while I was there that I felt the Lord telling me you know what, it’s been a good season of life, but it’s time for you to go out and feed the people that need to be fed instead of feeding the people that want to be fed. And so I came back to America to finish up my voluntary management degree. And I just was like, Okay, this is it. Once I’m done with school, I’m going to go right back to Peru. And then COVID hit and that didn’t happen. So I was like, Okay, God, like I understand I’m going to stay here for a little while. And I kept working in fine dining, doing what I was doing, gaining as much experience as I could, but still really felt that call from the Lord to go out into the world and feed his people. I kept trying to go back to Peru, and the doors kept being closed. And I was like, Lord, I just don’t understand. I really, really felt the call. So there was this one week that it was really weighing heavy on my soul. And one night where I couldn’t sleep at all. And so I just opened up my computer at like 2am and Google “cooking for Jesus internationally.” And I found Mercy Ships, which is so funny. I had never heard of Mercy Ships before in my entire life. As I was going through, and I was looking at this, I was like, Okay, this is great. This is an amazing hospital ship. But I don’t understand what this has to do with me. I feel like a lot of people do when they first hear Mercy Ships. They feel like if I’m not working in the hospital setting, then what good can I do? What can I bring? Mercy Ships is so much more than that. It calls for people who have all different talents and all different walks of life. There are so many people on the ship who have never even worked in a hospital but are some of the most hardworking people that I’ve ever met. And so this is my call for people who look at it first and think I’m not a possible person. Just come serve.

Raeanne:

There’s so many opportunities, like you said, we have teachers and engineers and chefs and you know, there’s people who have none thing to do with the medical field onboard, but they’re supporting all of that.

Morgan:

It’s so true. So I was looking on the website of what it would be to be able to be galley team lead, which is what I am now. And while I was reading through it, it was bulleting the things that I would need to be able to be successful. And I could pinpoint in my head where in the last 8-10 years of me being in culinary school, working in the different places that I’d worked, going to Peru where the Lord had taught me how to be able to do that successfully. And it was in that moment that I felt like the Lord was telling me, I’ve been preparing you for this for years now and you had no idea. And it was just a really overwhelming moment for me when I was like, Okay, God, I’ve been questioning and I’ve been wondering, and I’ve been saying, Why aren’t you giving me answers, but you had the answer in front of me the whole time, you were just waiting until the moment that you decided to show it to me. And so the next morning, I woke up, and I called my parents and I said, I think I want to move to West Africa. Now I’m here. And it’s been an amazing ride.

Raeanne:

Oh my gosh, I love the beauty of how God is always working in our lives. And maybe you didn’t know it, but all along, He was preparing you and equipping you for such a time as this to bring you to the ship to cook there. I have to ask you real quick — so do you prefer baking or creating meals? Savory, sweet was your favorite?

Morgan:

I feel like I go through seasons of wanting to do both. There’s so much difference between baking and cooking, cooking is a lot more flowing and being able to create things as you want. And being able to throw things in here and there and kind of make something beautiful, where baking is a lot more technical, there’s a lot more science behind it, especially baking bread. I did sourdough bread baking for two and a half years and it was always a daily fight with the bread. You know, it decides whether or not it wants to work. And there really are seasons where I have liked one over the other. But I feel like my heart has always gone back to just cooking and just the creative freedoms of going of how I how I feel and how things are moving along.

Raeanne:

And do you have a signature dish, something that you’re known for?

Morgan:

Oh, I love bringing any of the Pacific Northwest into my cooking, which is just hard when you’re on the other side of the world sometimes. I love just a really classic beautiful piece of salmon seared with a nice aioli over a nice risotto with whatever is seasonal and fresh.

Raeanne:

I’m in. I’ll take that.

Morgan:

I’ll make it for you.

Raeanne:

Well, I do hope that someday God calls you to my house. We have a lot of people that like to eat here and I would love to learn from you firsthand, especially your sourdough bread techniques. That would be fun. Well, Morgan, I just love that you are there cooking beautiful food for the crew on board. I think that’s another great thing that people need to hear who are listening to this, that it’s not just a bunch of fast food, quick stuff, get it out to the people. But there are some beautiful meals that come out of the galleys on board our ships. And we have, like yourself, these highly trained chefs with incredible experience that really nourish the crew in such a way that they’re happy and they’re joyful when they leave their meals. I know you and I were talking right before this, we just finished celebrating Easter and having been on board during Easter a couple of years ago, we had the most beautiful spread for Easter brunch. I mean it was extravagant! In fact, even just this Easter my children were recalling — mom remember on the ship there was bread baked in the shape of lambs for Easter. There were so many beautiful things. Tell us a little bit as we diverge here, how was Easter on board and what kind of amazing things did you get to create in the kitchen?

Morgan:

Oh, Easter was such a fun time because we get to really show off food you know, and it’s just extra special to be able to kind of see the bright shiny eyes of the people as they come in after service and be able to see these extravagant displays that we’ve set up with cheeses and crackers and bread, all shapes and sizes and tons of different desserts and just getting to celebrate people through food, food and a different way than they normally see it.

It’s hard sometimes because you get so many people from different walks of life in different places of the ship who are all raised eating different foods. And so you kind of have to have this strategic thinking of okay, what can I serve that’s going to make people from Africa happy? What am I going to serve to make the Europeans happy? What can I serve that’ll make the South African happy? And so our Easter menu was kind of split 50/50 With dishes like okra, and fried fish heads to help celebrate Africa. But then we also had roast beef and roasted potatoes, and all sorts of things that, you know, are traditional for what I would consider an Easter brunch and things like that. So it’s really cool to be able to get to use the foods that we’ve been given to help provide food not just for the people, but for the specific people that are on this vessel.

Raeanne:

I love that because you’re really using food to comfort the crew, right? You’re trying to be intentional with cooking for them things that are familiar. And when you’re so far from home, and you’re living in this very unique international community, sometimes you feel like you just need a little taste of home. So I love that you’re bringing comfort to the crew, but also you’re educating them. Because you’re letting everyone try something from different countries, and cook African meals on board. And so let the Europeans and the Americans and people from Asia taste food from Africa. It’s such a beautiful medium to use to care for people and to educate them.

Morgan:

It’s been so cool to get to learn myself more about other cultural cuisines. We’re going through kind of this rotation of trying to go through different countries once a week, you can see the whole world and the week in a dinner menu, because it kind of goes through everybody. And it was really special for me as an American to be able to be the one who helped write the Thanksgiving menu this year. Because for me, it was my first holiday away from my family and I was missing them a lot. And being able to represent my home and represent my family, and I even made my mom’s sweet potato recipe, and be able to share it with the crew, many of whom had never celebrated a Thanksgiving before in their life, and just be able to represent my home is so amazing, but also being able to help represent other people’s homes and be able to see the look on their face of being like, you know, I just really wanted some Jollof rice today. And now we have it. Yeah, it’s such a great experience to be able to learn about food from all over the world.

Raeanne:

That is so cool. Well, you told us that you are the galley team lead on board. Tell us a little bit what that means specifically, and what your day in and day out looks like.

Morgan:

The Galley Team Lead would be as I would consider it in America, kind of the sous chef role. So the one who is more in the kitchen, making sure that the team is doing well and doing what needs to get done kind of overlooking the whole galley making sure that the hospital chefs are doing okay to be able to feed the patients, that the dishes are getting done, that people are properly trained to be able to be cooking well and safely and with sanitation, and all of that and just kind of looking over everything to make sure that everything that needs to get done gets done. And it’s something that I enjoy doing. But it’s also been just a great blessing for me to be able to further my skills on communication, further my skills on what leadership looks like, especially working with people from outside of my country. No one on my team is from my country or my culture. And so getting to work with them and getting to learn how they do things in their countries and in their environments and being able to just learn — how can I better communicate with you successfully? How can I better show you what needs to get done in a way that you will understand? And it’s just been a really big growing experience for me not even just necessarily on the culinary side of things of making food for hundreds of people a day, three times a day, but really just working on, you know, what does it mean to be a leader? What does it mean to lead like Jesus wants us to lead and that’s been really important for me.

Raeanne:

Wow. Morgan, tell us about a memorable moment for you and your job.

Morgan:

There’s so many I’ve just been so blessed to be able to have the crew that I’ve been able to have and I think that my favorite moments in the galley actually doesn’t have anything to do with cooking. But there have been several times where we just listen to music when we’re in the galley. And so there are lots of times where I’ll be getting, you know, a little bit stressed and they’ll just say let’s just have a dance party. And so we just stop what we’re doing and we have like a three minute dance party where we all just start dancing and singing. It’s been such a good lesson for me to learn, coming from the environment where it’s Go, go, go, don’t take a moment off, just keep going, being able to just look around and have people be like, Hey, let’s just step back a second, let’s just have some fun.

I’ve also to have the opportunity to teach a couple of cooking classes for the Academy kids and skills class, which has been such a great opportunity, I taught them how to make fresh pasta, we learned about soups, I’ve been teaching them knife skills and things like that. And it’s just been such a cool opportunity to get the children excited about food, get the children excited about cooking, especially in an environment where most of their meals are prepared for them by us. We give them the opportunity to create things themselves and learn what the process of cooking is, how important it is to be able to do as fresh as possible and as nutritious as possible. And it’s been so cool, because now they all come running up to me whenever they have cooked or baked anything. And it’s just been so cool to be able to use my talents not just in the galley setting and being able to work with the day crew, but also being able to encourage the Academy kids on what it means to cook and what it means to love food. And it’s just been such a great experience.

Raeanne:

That is so amazing. I mean, you are raising up the next generation of culinary masters right here in West Africa. But I love the fact that this is the best plug for families to go serve with Mercy Ships, your kids can get classically trained in the culinary arts by a trained chef, and then when you return home, you will have your own private chef in your home. I love it. Morgan, you mentioned that you get to work with people from all over the world and on your team, you are essentially the only American. Tell us about the people that you work with, where they are from and what have you learned from them and their cultures.

Morgan:

For the first six months here, I was working on the GLM when it was stationed in Tenerife during the equipping season. And so, a lot of the people who work in the galleys during field service are day crew. So day crew are local people from the community who come in and serve with us alongside of us while we’re there, but when we’re not in field service, and we’re in the equipping phase, it’s just fully volunteers from all over the world. And so my first six months, I had a lot of people from the Netherlands and a lot of people from Belgium and just kind of all sorts of all over the European world and just getting to learn from them, their different cooking styles and how they season — how people season things is not really something that you think about until you know you’re working alongside someone, and realizing, okay, there is a lot of cultural difference in how you season food. You know, what I’m used to is not exactly what they’re used to. My go to spices aren’t necessarily what other people go for us the normal spices. And just learning how the different cultures’ taste buds are a little bit different — like I’ve found that people from the Netherlands don’t necessarily like things as spicy as somebody from West Africa or South America, or they just don’t spice their food as much. And so what I would see as totally fine for somebody else would be like, Oh, this is way too spicy. And it’s so interesting to think about when you’re from your own country and not experiencing other influences from other parts of the world.

Raeanne:

Whenever we travel, we try to eat the local foods because we want to experience the differences. You know, you want to experience the culture and we do that so often through foods and it is because it is so different from what we’re used to. Things are more spicy, things are more bland, wherever you go, it’s a little bit different. So that’s neat that you’re kind of broadening your education and your palate in a way by learning from the people that you get to work with.

Morgan:

But it’s also difficult when you’re on a ship that has people from all over the world. Because, you know, I kind of have to go back and forth where one day, I make something a little bit spicier to please half of the crew, and then stay off to make it a little bit more bland to please the other half of the crew. And so there’s this constant battle of trying to make everybody happy. And it doesn’t always work. But they get fed and they get fed well, so that’s okay.

Raeanne:

That’s fun. Back home, the culinary world can be a little bit dark, and things that go on that most people wouldn’t really know about or think about when they’re enjoying a beautiful meal. But you’re experiencing now something very different. As you mentioned, there’s dance parties going on in the kitchen. How are you going to integrate what you’ve experienced on the ship back into the restaurants that you work in when you return home one day?

Morgan:

One of the biggest things for me is just learning to slow down a little bit and not become so consumed with only focusing on the dishes, but really focus on the people around me and focus on the lives of the people around me and be able to get to know them a little bit better, be able to show God’s love by opening up a little bit more or you know, just taking that second to have a dance party and showing them that life can be different than just having to solely focus on the next task at hand. And so I’m just really hoping that when I go back that I’ll be able to take the things that I’ve learned here, to take my newfound ability to slow down a little bit and be able to not just be so focused on making sure that things are done as quickly as possible with the most efficiency, which is truly very important, but not for the sake of burning yourself out or not for the sake of you know, overlooking the needs of others. And so I think just taking a moment and being able to love the people around you well and be able to support the people around you well, even if that means that it takes a little bit longer to get that thing you know, those potatoes peeled or something like that. I really want to take that back with me.

Raeanne:

That would be great. Morgan, you have been on board now for about eight months working through a two-year commitment on board, you’ll also get to go to Sierra Leone in a couple of months, which will be a whole other experience for you. It’ll be great. But thus far, how has your life been changed and impacted because of your time on board volunteering?

Morgan:

Yes, my life has been changed, my life has slowed down a lot. I’ve learned how to go with the flow more because you kind of really need to be able to do that to be on Mercy Ships, because things are constantly changing. And I think that my communication skills have gotten better, my relational skills have gotten better, and just being able to better love the people around me to be able to focus less on the tasks that I need to get done and be able to focus more on loving people. And being able to show Christ’s love through my actions and through my words has been really impactful for me and just having this environment that is such a close knit community, being able to have people around you all the time, that are just going to be there to support you and can understand what you’re going through. Because it’s often hard to explain my job to people at home as much as you try to do it by words unless you’ve been on a vessel and unless you’ve felt what it truly feels like to be volunteer, it’s really hard to explain. So being able to have that community life and being able to be able to say, Oh, it was a tough day today because I was in the middle of cooking something and the emergency panel went off and I had to muster in the middle of making soup. To have people who can understand what that is like, it’s been so impactful for me to be able to rely on people more, to be able to not do it by my own strength, but by the Lord’s and through leaning on the people around me. And that’s been really important and impactful for me.

Raeanne:

Well, I’m so grateful that you Googled “cooking for Jesus internationally,” and happened to find Mercy Ships along the way. Because I know, as you nourish the bodies of the crew, you’re also nourishing their souls by telling them we want to create something that is comforting to you, something that reminds you of home and something that makes you smile. And I know you are doing that every day through using your expertise on board in our kitchens and the galleys. So, Morgan, thank you so much for what you do. And thank you for sharing with us a little bit about the culinary world on board today.

Morgan:

Thank you so much. It’s been great.

For more information about Mercy Ships, go to mercyships.org, and to keep up with the guests on New Mercies, follow us on Instagram at NewMerciesPodcast.