I’m a firm believer in grating cheese over food that doesn’t impress me with its taste. I feel like this is how I want to live my life. Grating cheese over things and impressing myself. Yes, I do take the easy way out but that’s because not everything I make is Page 1-top post-hit publish worthy. If I was good at vomiting percentages, I’d say 60% of what I make tastes a lot like goat cheese. The rest is me being possessed by evil spirits and cooking things that see me spending 10 minutes staring at my taste tester.
“Is it good?”
“Do you like it?”
“You’re lying”
“It’s not that good.”
“Give me the truth, man. That’s all I ask.”
To tell you the cold hard truth, it hasn’t been that good this week. Either I’m realising that I wasn’t made with a flair for cooking or I just have temporary afternoon blahs. Or I feel too plain and I want to step up my game. If I have to, I have no idea how. Do you have such thoughts too? I assume it comes with the territory…of coming up with something new each week.
I thought about how I’d like to be Miss Spice of Life in this world and I came up with a few ideas. To everybody not reading this right now, this is me thinking out loud and motivating myself to focus on this experiment as a whole and not a day-day thing.
– Stay simple and true to your ingredients. It takes a lot for me to say “NO, I will let this lemon be a lemon and flavour my cold water right now” when all I can think of is “PIEEEEE”. Nothing wrong with that except you tend to scatter your thoughts to 70 different areas instead of taking a seat and sipping on you lemonade and feeling so cool that you can whatever you want if you just breathe.
– Reminisce food experiences. Those meals are the ones you yearn for. Find your own special way to recreate them and make them your own.
FINALLY.
– Cook the food you love to eat. If this week is all about the dal (yellow lentils) and rice, then so be it. Yesterday it was slightly different. I couldn’t stop thinking about the rainbow carrots in the vegetable drawer. They were sitting there and being pretty and I was scouring the web for recipes that would do the most justice to them. I couldn’t wait much longer so I went ahead and cooked them in the way I knew best. I would eat this 10 times over if I could.
I will have this recipe up for you sooner than you think.
In other news, I have to do a test tomorrow. For a job. Spectacular. Thankfully it requires very little getting out of bed and a lot of tea on tap.
In other other news, these guys are making my life just when I was about to give up on them.
Hey little ones, I will eat you very soon. Without cheese because that’s how good you’ll be.
Hehh, I have those thoughts every week. The pressure of having to think up something fun and interesting every other day, sometimes gets to me. Add to it this wretched summer which turns my kitchen into a furnace, and I just dont want to go in there and cook. Sometimes I wonder if its the same person that at times needs to be bodily wrenched out of the kitchen. It doesnt make sense to me..
But yes, ebb and flow happens to me too. Also the haranguing of taste-tester, begging for the truth happens too. And then when the truth comes out, I cant always man up and take it. So I sulk too hee 😛
YES. Like how am I going to eat every single thing I make and keep making the same thing over and over again. I’m so not okay with wasting food and right now I’m eating crumbs of a failed buckwheat tart. I just tuned the tin and it fell out and broke. Yum.
Instead of coming up with new ideas every time, I cook the same thing over and over again till some recipe struck me..then i use the first try to explore and hopefully the second round to make it better. No stress 🙂 And I really love baking whole carrots. So many colors too! I envy.
I think I’ll be fine as soon as I figure out a system. I put too much pressure on myself. I’m going to try your advice. Thank you.
to me, cooking is my happiest moment in life. enjoy the process with some music and wine…it helps alot 🙂
I like your attitude. I do enjoy the process as well but since I’ve started writing about it too, I’ve started letting it stress me out. I’m going to try that music and wine thing.
Oh yes and the carrots are gorgeous! I couldn’t stop thinking about roasting them.
Those carrots look like heaven! Its fine to get things not quite right. Makes the ones that come out right even more special. I think the bloopers are blog worthy too! Also I do the grated-cheese-savior-ingredient-sprinkle all the time and don’t feel bad. What are those shoots?
Cheese is our friend!! Those shoots are a salad leaf mix called mesclun. I hope. If not then they’re braising greens. I’ll know soon.