dandelion

I’m a foodie. I’m a huge foodie. And I love to cook. Which is good because my OH doesn’t know how to boil an egg properly, let alone do toast without burning it. Luckily for both of us I paid attention and watched my mother and learnt all her tricks. My dad less so, as he mostly did the roasts and specialty breads.

As a result of watching them I knew I had the basics. And, like them both, I’ve never been scared to change up a recipe, which I see as a basic template from which to create something else, something that will suit my palate more. And yes, I know, some recipes you just don’t mess with. Others, though, just beg to be personalised to taste. That’s how they were first created to begin with.

And so, where a recipe might include chilli peppers, something I cannot eat, I will experiment with other heat giving spices coming up with my own combo to recreate a dish to my liking.

Sometimes this works, sometimes the dish is inedible to the point it ends up in the bin. Although it’s true to say, the OH who has a cast iron stomach, will probably do their best to eat it regardless. I have no idea how they’re able to eat what they eat half the time. But that’s a whole other post for another day.

The upshot from all this experimentation is that I have a fairly good idea at what works together and what doesn’t and, just recently, dazzled my sister in law and husband at a dinner I cooked by seemingly haphazardly just throwing stuff into pan and having it taste edible. So much so, my sister in law wants cooking lessons to up their own game. Thing is, what I’ve learnt has taken me not just years but possibly decades of trial and error and practise to do. It doesn’t easily translate into a couple of lessons on a weekend.

That isn’t to say, I can’t write up what I do in a recipe. I’ve done that for her and hope she gets it when I say a dash, or a dribble, or a pinch and that she needs to work out what works for her, and her taste buds. The important thing is to taste at every step of the process and make sure that what you’re doing tastes right for you.

And you, are you competent in the kitchen, or do you just get by?

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

I’m constantly surprised and, by this point in my life, I shouldn’t be, but I am. What of? People who feel the need to constantly be busy or doing this, that, or the other. Is it something that happened slowly, over night, I wonder? Is it since the advent of smart phones, or maybe TV? Or was it always there and I just didn’t notice it?

Because, I’m of a mind that I really don’t feel the need to be constantly doing something, anything, or going somewhere to do something (sports), whether to participate or watch. I’m not always in front of a screen, or TV. I have a life outside of smart gadgets that involves me walking around a garden, or sitting in a park staring at, well, trees, flowers or the grass, or a bird flying over head.

I can quite happily just sit somewhere, quietly, and do absolutely nothing, other than breathe. I don’t feel the need to justify myself by any other activity other than knowing I’m alive, and I exist. And that I have a keen fascination with just observing. Whether that’s clouds in the sky, people passing by, or a spider making a web between two plants.

I can sit in a coffee shop sipping my tea and be the only one not on a smart device, or making loud conversation. I don’t feel the need to be heard let alone seen. And am content to be, to all around me, invisible.

That doesn’t mean that I cannot make myself heard or noticed when I want to. I know how to be forceful when necessary. It’s a skill I learnt.

So I wonder, why so many try so hard to be seen, heard, and noticed in a world that is, quite honestly, totally indifferent to us all?

Maybe I’m from that generation, or it was how I was brought up, or what my parents instilled in me. I don’t know. I do know there are others like me, who don’t feel the need to be a performance and on 24/7. But somehow, in today’s society, I think we may be a dying breed, the last of our kind in a world where nearly everyone is suffering burn-out of some kind.

I think to myself, maybe everyone needs to start taking yoga classes, and learn to still their minds and bodies, and maybe, just maybe, stop for a moment and realise, they don’t have to compete, don’t have to be in the race to nowhere and can, instead, just sit this one out and take in the real world they’ve been missing all this time.

I feel like I want to close by saying, go hug a tree and have a conversation with it. But maybe, that’s a bit flippant. So instead, maybe I’ll just go do it for you.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧