Dear Friend,
Someone asked me the other day if I was a good cook. The holidays are rolling around and everyone’s mind seems to be on food: what we will make, what we will eat, what we will bring. Her question brought me up short, because I don’t really know the answer. I know I’m not the kind of cook who has a gift for the culinary arts in my soul. I can’t look at a table full of ingredients and find delight in coming up with a fresh, new way to use them to create a never before tasted work of art: for me it would bring on instant anxiety and panic. But give me a cookbook, any cookbook, and I can spend countless hours, losing all track of time, measuring, mixing, timing, slowly, little by little creating something out of seemingly nothing. I wonder if our cooking styles are indicative of our personalities: are we more comfortable knowing the expected path and following it, staying away from any risks or obstacles, sure that we will meet our final destination with no slip ups along the way. Or do we prefer to eschew directions of any kind, following our instincts, willing to take any chance that the ingredients we’ve chosen won’t mix together as beautifully as we had hoped. Is it more important for us to end up with exactly the thing we set out to create or do we relish the unknown: what if this cake doesn’t turn out exactly like the picture but tastes more wonderful that I could ever have imagined. Do we have to choose one way or the other? Even in a recipe? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the next time I cook something, I just might throw caution to the wind and throw a little espresso powder into my chocolate cake batter just to see what happens. And maybe, just maybe, I might say yes next time a friend invites me to try a new food or hobby. Why not...my cookbook will still be safely up on my shelf for me to reach out for whenever I feel the need for more grounding. I feel more free already!
Always thinking of you,
B