Skip to main content

Hopeful Cooking

I've never claimed to be a good cook. When I want to make my own meal, my focus has been on what I want and what I can make easily. Usually that means I will make the same meals week in and week out for months. Sometimes, years.

Yet lately, I've felt the pull of trying to cook meals that I've never made when I cook for me and Hope.

In the past, I'd use the excuse of having too much fear of making something that tasted terrible. Why should I make something I had never made before if there's a chance of it being terrible? Since I was not an expert with understanding recipes on the fly (gotta read the fine print or you'll be screwed), it would be nearly impossible for me to make something tasteful and edible. So what was the point in trying?

No co-worker, family member, or previous girlfriend has called me a bad cook. But I never really believed I was even a decent cook. If making something would take more time preparing to get right than the time needed to eat it, I doubted myself out of trying something new.

After Hope cooked us some delicious meals, an epiphany came to me: Why shouldn't I at least try to make something I had never made before? She encourages me by not discouraging me, so why not give something like turkey sausage chili or chicken artichoke pizza a chance?

The meals I have cooked come from recipes found online. I have yet to ask my mother for recipes, but I might someday. I'm up for trying something new every week. Cooking something new doesn't mean I will make the greatest meal Hope and I will ever have. I shouldn't place such weight on myself. If I do, nothing will ever be good enough.

Basically, my weekly criteria/goal is to make something new that sounds like something we will enjoy. Sounds simple enough, but it's taken me this long to understand. I'm not going to chef jail (where I'm banned from the kitchen until further notice) if something doesn't turn out 100 percent delicious.

The underlying message is to put forth a strong effort in something that benefits both of us. If I have to read a recipe repeatedly so I can understand every single part of the instructions and ingredients, well, that's what I have to do. She makes excellent food for us. The least I can do is trying new things and being willing to learn new things. This is all another step in learning to live a life with anxiety instead of living a life dominated by anxiety.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air...
4 comments
Read more

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five

Originally posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 : For some, Ben Folds Five was merely a one hit wonder. For others, the trio was a life-changer. Myself, I’m one of the latter. Being formally introduced with the “Battle of Who Could Care Less” video on 120 Minutes , I was very intrigued to know more about this piano-bass-drums combo. Once I heard Whatever and Ever Amen , I was hooked. As a matter of fact, out of all of my favorite bands, Ben Folds Five is one of the few that I liked right away and I have held the same kind of admiration ever since. Their three proper albums (and one b-sides collection) are staples in my record collection and they may very well be (or soon be) staples in your collection too. For a band that was once described as “punk rock for sissies,” you may realize how effortlessly these guys walked between fun, semi-goofy pop songs and some really deep and powerful stuff too. It helps that they had it right from the beginning and kept maturing. Ben Folds Five (1995) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Politics Shmolitics

Yesterday, the more pleas I saw for people to go out and vote, the more uncomfortable I felt. Plenty of the blogs I hit up everyday said something along the lines of "Vote and if you don't, don't complain." Folks, this is why I find discussing politics so alienating. There are plenty of reasons why I don't discuss politics on here or in my everyday conversations. The biggest reason is because I don't have a lot of interest in politics in the first place. By what I've seen, heard and read for the last eight years, political debates are usually pissing contests. Judging by the views I've processed, it would be easy to think that we're all slowly going downhill either on the left, right or down the middle. Yet I don't think we're going totally downhill or totally uphill. Debating the direction we're going seems futile, especially when adults start screaming at each other like they're in grade school. To my ears, political debates are s...
11 comments
Read more