Criticism vs Craftsmanship

The process of creating something from the heart it much more complicated, not because the feeling itself is complicated, but rather how to translate it into the end product that makes things so difficult.

I’m not a genius, heck I’m not even sure who out there really enjoys what I write, cook and share.  What I do and how I express it, is all out of love of the art.

That’s the beauty of art, isn’t it? The ability to be raw with the materials you use and doing all you can to fully show how you feel at that very moment.

Food is no exception.

My natural affinity towards food as a way to be creative has developed from childhood.  My emotions. My experiences. My choices.  I don’t really expect all to relate, but I hope that open hearts and empty stomachs give you, the reader, some insight and a common thread of understanding of how much this topic means to me.

On that note, I don’t expect all to like it either.  At some point as an artist, whether you are a musical, visual, performing artist or anything in between, you will face harsh and often brutal criticism.  It could even come from a friend, someone you really love, or fellow artist.  More often than not, this evaluation of your work can be nerve wrecking, and quite hurtful to the ego. You put a lot of love into what you do as a creative mind and it can be difficult to hear not so wonderful things.

So why am I writing about this? It’s not about a moment in my life. No. This isn’t a childhood memory I’m trying to solidify in virtual time. Not that either.  And it doesn’t sound like I’m bitter about something, right? Precisely.

This is a “none of the above” moment.

******************

Alright, Girl who Likes to Cook…what’s this jibber jabber about?

I’ll tell you.

I’m in love. 

Yes. I said it.

I’m deeply in love.  Head over heals. And it’s hard to ignore.  I have tried to get over it, but some things are permanent and unwavering.  I dream, I write, I have kept a piece of my heart aside, or maybe on my sleeve.

Tug at the heart strings and may be more.

It haunts my head and my heart and I know, I mean I really KNOW, with ever cell in my body that I will not stop loving until the day I cannot be here any more.

I am in love with this life. I am in love with the souls in this life. Even you…yes, you.

And most importantly I’m in love with loving the souls in my life with the food I love to share. I cannot pretend. I cannot stop. 

Loving you with my whisk in one hand and mixing bowl in the other gives me no greater joy.  You don’t have to love what I make and even if you chew me up and spit me out, I will continue to love you the only way I know how…

********************

So my craft is this.  I write, I cook, I feed and I love.  Your criticism no matter how crushing, how hurtful, even if you really didn’t mean it, I will take on the chin.

Call it crazy.  Call it whatever you want.  I know the positivity I feel and it cannot change me.

Yes there are darks sides.

I’ve been pushed, I’ve been pulled. I’ve slept in my car overnight in the dead of winter just to make sure I was on the ball for 1000 people arriving for breakfast at 6:00am.  I’ve lost feeling in my left index finger from severe cuts, hot oil splashed across my eye. Name it, I’ve felt it.

Words? Plenty of those too.

You cannot succeed, you cannot even lift, and you cannot get that job unless you go out with me.

Asked on dates, asked to quit, asked to crawl in a hole and stay there.

Too slow, too bland, too spicy, and too bitchy.

Not enough strength, not enough experience, not enough dedication, and just plain not enough.

You won’t be famous, you won’t make it big, you won’t pass the Red Seal, you won’t keep that job.

You’re eye candy, you’re cheap labour, you’re not going to find a better position than this, so count your blessings.

High on myself, high on my horse, high up there because you must be doing favours on the side.    

You think you’re smart, you think you’re clever, you think anyone is going to care about your vision?

And no, don't think its for pity sake.

*******************

So to You, the Critics & Your Criticism:

Thank you for keeping me dedicated. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for making my heart flutter and cheeks grow flushed and red. Thank you for making me shed hot tears and making my blood boil. Thanks for making me sweat, making me work 3 times harder, and 10 times smarter.   Thank you for reading me, thank you for cutting me down, thank you for your feedback and thank you for your bold and blunt opinions. 

Most of all, more than anything in the world….thank you for making me fall more and more in love with every passing second.

Oh and to You, fellow Craftsmen & Women…you know what to do.

Forever yours,

A Girl who Likes to Cook

Mental Break & Cadillac Mug

The eerie hum of my laptop screen and the creek of my computer chair echo into my half assembled bedroom.

Notebooks spread open revealing scribbled dialogue from my day in the lecture halls. 

The clock on the screen says 10:05pm.  It’s still early. 

I see at the edge of my large black dresser the plate from dinner.

Breaded chicken with broccoli and wild rice, mom’s quick go-to staple meal.

Never disappoints.

An opened bag of microwave popcorn, empty,

With the hint of salty butter still hanging on to the insides of the white paper bag, I look in to see if there's one kernel to spare.

In my hand is a chipped coffee mug with a red Cadillac on the front. Underneath it said “Dennis.”

Empty. I need something much more interesting than coffee.

I had hit the ceiling about an hour ago.  There was only so much Cognitive Psychology one could take.

The mid-term exam was set in 4 days and I had gotten up to my armpits with Procedural and Semantic Memory.

Wernicke’s Language Theory, and so on and so forth.  My head wants to stop.

How much of this cramming am I going to do?

I bookmark my textbook and stack my notes semi-neatly in a pile.

I open my bedroom door and its pure darkness. The rustle of Oreo, my cat, as she tip-toes out of her kitty house.

I feel around in the dark and my hand catches the banister of the oak staircase taking me to our living room.

In the dead of night, the pop and crack of the wood under my Winnie the Pooh bedroom slippers makes me edgy.

Like I’m doing something wrong. My ears strain to hear if anyone is stirring in their rooms.

I make it down the stairs, the glow of a full moon peeps through the window as Oreo slips passed my feet and purrs so gently.

I flick the switch on in the kitchen and look at the digital clock on the stove, 11:02pm, still early.

As if my brain and body were taken over by another person or another life, I begin. 

Oven switched on...350°F.

Flinging cupboard doors open, I swiftly place a pot on the stove.

Pearly white milk glugs slowly out of the carton and sizzles slightly as it lands on the bottom of the pot.

Another lot was set with simmering with water. The tidy little kitchen quickly becomes over thrown.

I reach to me right, to the upper shelf and pull down the chocolate chips, throwing a fistful into the milk.

Droplets float up and back into the milky bath as I stir.

A big plastic mixing bowl is next, added to it a cup of flour and baking powder that sits in a fluffy peak.

The rest of the chocolate sits in a stainless steel bowl propped up on the boiling pot of water. 

A silky knob of butter melds with the glistening melted chocolate as I run my wooden spoon through combining it all. 

My chocolatey milk simmers slightly on the burner. I decided to put a spoonful of cocoa powder in and whisk away the clumpy formations.  Cocoa meteors spinning dangerously in a galaxy of milk.

A hit of vanilla in my melted chocolate and sunshiny egg yolks plummet from their cracked shells to join. I haphazardly dump the floury contents of my other mixing bowl into the chocolate. Together they twirl.  Bright white streaks the mahogany brown. I stop short of completely combining, any further it will be a sin.

The oven radiates waves of heat as I open it and quickly stick my hand and arm in to check. Playing culinary 'chicken', I notice the hairs on the top of my forearm slightly move with the gush of hot air.  The oven is ready and brownies are in.

I peer into my frothy foamy beverage and decide it's time.  With a grin I look up at the clock again, 11:28pm.  Good to go.

In the other room, our dining table and hutch loom in the dark.  I know that if I want to crack open that hutch, I dare not turn on the chandelier.  Being conspicuous is crucial.

Florescent glow of Oreo's eyes gleam back at me.  She crouches down and prepares to leap from one arm of the couch to the dining table.  She keeps watch as I slowly place my palm on the brass handle of the cherry wood beast.

I pull and hear the click of the latch.  The fine china plates rattle as I move the small wooden door. 

I feel around in the dark cupboard, as my hand lands on the first cold bottle.  I shimmy my finger tips to the top and feel the lid.  I can tell it's whiskey...or scotch. The curve of the neck and ripples on the cap tells me this would not pair well.  

My hand skips and feels a shorter bottle, the cover tells me this one is a keeper. I pull it out and place it on the floor beside me.  I stick my hand in again, no - that's wine. My fingers jump once more and it lands on a tall slender throat of a bottle, heavy, I feel a wax label - yes. 

The process continues, swiftly feeling around in the black of night gently moving vessels around, touching labels, holding lids, turning them off and lightly sniffing out the yes's and no's.  In a matter of minutes, I have a roster of qualified candidates.

I run back to the oven, my chocolate brownie companion needs time.  It's now or never.

As fast and as accurate as I can - 2 count each of my liquor line-up gets poured in. Ameretto, Irish cream, dark rum, creme de cacao, and grand marnier.  I let it simmer again.  The orange essence wafts up to my nose and flows into my skull. A special hot chocolate indeed.

Before the timer dings I shut off the oven and pull my fudgey dessert out and let it sit on the counter. 

A matte crust, slowly buckles as it cools, cracking and flaking away as I gently press the top, checking for doneness.

The edges are slightly tough, but in a good way. I can tell it will offer a good chewing experience.

Don't cut into it yet, I tell myself, it needs to chill out a bit. Patience. Time 11:51pm. It's okay, I have a little more time.

I rapidly replace the bottles without making them clink together, quietly do the dishes and wipe down the counter.

At last my moment. A gooey square and a steamy cup. No books, no pens, no lecture notes and no exam. My eyes grow heavy, my grin much more 'relaxed.'

Time: 12:02am

A mental break well-earned and a Cadillac mug well brewed.

xoxo,

A Girl who Likes to Cook

How this Girl came to Be

 “I’ll just marry a guy who knows how to cook!” I scream as I slam my bedroom door behind me.

I rumble through my backpack to find the half eaten bagel from that days’ lunch. The rubbery chew of the bread makes my jaw pinch, the butter, which was once warm and unctuous is now congealed and stale.

I turn on the television and raise the volume. 

Me? Cook? I’m a psych major! I don’t need this! The brain is my work. 

I cracked open my text book and thumbed through the pages, and in the mean time I’ll flip on the laptop to take notes.

A rap on the door.

“Hey,” dad said.

“Ya,” my reply.

“What’s with the attitude? Is it bad that we ask you to help?”

I knew the answer, and the answer was no. Being 18 and a university student, to get by,  I lived on street food, cheap coffee and at times whatever sloppy left-overs were in the fridge. The strap of my backpack was threaded and one of the small pockets with the zipper was permanently un-zipped because the pull-tab had broken off. My life is difficult, I’m in chronic frustration due to the workload, the exams, the papers, maybe I have a stress disorder? Yes, first rule of psychology, don’t diagnose yourself.

“Okay, I know but with what time, dad? I’m not going to ‘slave’ away at dinner.  That’s just stupid!”

Dad, after I had reached a certain age, stopped entering my room passed the doorway.  Not sure why, I didn’t have crazy posters of boys or an overly girly room. It was just my stuff.  But nevertheless, he stood there at the door while I slumped over textbooks and notepads in my dark room.

“Look, your mom and I work. We aren’t asking you to quit school to help out, but you can’t do ‘nothing’ around here either,” he pointed out.

I can hear mom slamming cupboard doors, muttering out loud.  Loud enough for me to know she was muttering about me, but not loud enough for me to really decipher what she was saying.

“Okay, let’s make a deal,”

He better start by saying I’ll buy you a new car, if... I thought to myself.

“Cook whatever you want,” still standing at the threshold of my room and the outside world that was the household where the rules change in favour of the elders. Where I, master of my OWN universe, am no longer master.

“What do you mean ‘whatever you want?’ You mean, if I want to cook lasagna every night, I can?”

His nose curled, “Well, kind of like that. But what I mean is, cook something. Anything! Whatever it is, we will eat it. Just as long as you cook and you feel happy about doing it.”

Huh.  Okay.

“Think about it,”

The door shuts.

45 minutes later, the door swings open again.

“Come. Eat. Dinner is done.” She says in her short and curt tone.

I grab my plate and saunter back to my room.

As I eat my dinner (which was delicious by the way) I contemplated the offer.  It’s not like I had the option to refuse.  But now the doors were open.  If I cook whatever I want, literally, and they have no choice but to eat it, this could be the ultimate deal. Things started looking up. It was in my favour.  Prior to this proposal, I had always been dragged kicking and screaming into the kitchen.  Peeling potatoes, mincing garlic and ginger, cutting up okra, or dicing squash.  The labour-intensive stuff that I not only hated doing, but hated eating too.

I’m 18. I don’t think too much about eating. At this stage in my life, food was a nuisance. It got in the way of my very busy schedule of travelling to university, boys, studying, late night cram sessions in the library, boys, part time job at the mall, boy and somehow managing to have a semi-normal social life.  I spent the summer busting by butt saving to 'hopefully' buy my first car, and paying off my tuition.  I don’t even remember what I ate for breakfast today…oh yeah, I didn’t eat breakfast.

However, it’s not like I don’t like food.  Just don’t have a moment to appreciate it.  

So now that the ball is in my court, let’s push the envelope. I had been watching the late night cooking shows on the food channel. I'm sure I could do some of that stuff.  I've watched mom cook her soups, curries and stews over and over again. 

I slept belly full that night.  Woke up the next day and made my trek to school.  It was a short day on campus, 2 hour lecture on Biopsychology, 1.5 hour gap and then another 2 hour lecture on Literature & Creative Writing.  I think I can get the 3:10 pm bus home.

I unlocked the front door to our apartment, the flat was quiet.  Oreo popped her furry head out from under the coffee table.  

I walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and there sat a whole chicken. I looked up at the clock, it read 4:35 pm.  Here goes nothing...

And so it begins.  A Girl who Likes to Cook.

A Race

Slices of watermelon gleam in the sun.

A picnic table, red cups and open bags of potato chips.

A pot of rice, covered with tin foil.

The smell of charcoal burning

Cricket bats and tennis balls lay under an umbrella

A warm breeze pulls through and disturbs leaves on trees

Barbeque sauce on my finger tips and a burger without a bun

Styrofoam plates peak out of a black garbage bag wrapped around a tree

A family of 24 kids and 18 adults are we

A small army

Ready for a challenge…a challenge we always conquer

Girls first.

A rope is put down

Fingertips to the ground

An old man on a megaphone counts down

Go!

9 girls in a row – 3 of us to one family

The rest, just known as the enemy

My running shoes slide on the grass

Sister #1 is behind me, sister #2 in front

I, the youngest of the three, hold up the middle

My throat is dry. The August sun heats the top of my head

My oversized t-shirt catches the breeze and floats off my back like a parachute

Run. That's all I need to do.

As we approach, the vision becomes clearer.

We three reach the rickety picnic table where those infamous Styrofoam plates sit in a row.

A sight I did not want to see.

A sight we three dread.

Is it purple? Or blue? Maybe it was red. The debate still goes on today almost 20 years later.

It wobbled pathetically under the scorching sun. We saw it dissolve before our eyes.

“Eat! Eat!” said the old man with a megaphone. The feedback scraped the inside of our skulls as he spoke, rather, screamed into the device.

We stare each other down. Like mental synergy we all knew what the other was thinking

How?

The competition is catching up. No time to think, only time to win!

We each grab a plate and in synchrony we slurp.

The gelatin tasted cloyingly sweet, the essence of some fruit flavor giggled in our mouths.

A gag reflex we all tried to fight as we forced the warm wobbly dessert down.

With a final glug we all flung our plates and made the mass exodus out of the eating arena and down the track.

But as I sprinted, I turned to my left to see Sister #2, puffy cheeked and eyes watering

She looked at me and pointed, apparently I had the same expression

Sister #1 was bringing up the rear. Her face mimicked ours.

An end in sight we see the official rope holders lift up the finish line.

My throat closed, my eyes winced. The front of my t-shirt was stuck to my chest as I pushed those last few feet.

My sneakers skid through the grass again as I pushed across the finish just a split second after my sister.

The last one of us just moments behind me.

As if we all shared the same emotions, and sensations; like we could read each other’s thoughts, we did the unexpected.

Our lungs deflated, our stomachs hurled. In a whip lash motion we jerked our heads forward and released the contents of our cheeks

Neither of us could contain the awful gelatin concoction any longer. 

We held our stomachs as we moaned. The price we pay for coming in top 3.

Our siblings point and laugh, while our other cousins come crowding around us like an emergency rescue crew, attending to our gut-wrenching Jell-O experience.

Some handed us water, some came with towels, and others came with food (why, I don’t know). We see our parents in the distance clapping and cheering

The enemy family, defeated.

The old man in a frumpy hat appears again with his short circuited megaphone

“Come winners, collect your prize!”

Handed to us were t-shirts as we climbed up on the picnic bench.

Big smiles we had, not because of the victory alone, but out of relief.

Never to be forgotten, a foot race in the sun

A tainted memory of what was a notorious win

We took one for the team, we three under the blazing sun

We will never look at gelatin the same away again.

Xo,

The Girl who Likes to Cook