Hey there, awesome readers!
“So how did that maple-pecan cornmeal bread turn out?” That is today’s question.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can click here to catch up.
If you do know what I’m talking about and sense the underlying sarcasm in the question, I both love you and hate you. Love you because it means you KNOW me and hate you because it means you KNOW me.
The answer to today’s question: How many bricks does it take to build a house?
While the results of my quasi-baking efforts “looked” good – maybe even great from certain angles – it turned out unbreakably hard and tasteless. And yet I followed the instructions to a tee.
I learned two things from trying to make that damn recipe:
1. I will NEVER conquer my kitchen, and
2. Never judge a book by its cover. Or in this case, never judge a bread-making machine recipe by the simplicity of its instructions.
I have to commend Greg though on his attempt to make me feel better about this recent #KitchenFail. While still chewing his first bite, which took a while since the bread was hard and dry, he said, “Mmmm I love the corn taste …”
And then he must have questioned himself because right after swallowing, he asked, “It’s supposed to taste like corn, right?”
(The reason I knew he’d just swallowed is because I watched the bread go down his throat. It was like watching a snake digest a giraffe.)
So back to the drawing board I go.
Some of you may be wondering why I even bother. Why do something that I’m clearly not good at?
The answer?
Because even though my cooking turns out terrible 11 times out of 10, I still enjoy the process. The browsing through recipes … planning … buying the ingredients … looking up words like sauté to make sure I understand the meaning within the context … the stirring … taking pleasuring in knowing where I keep the measuring spoons … recognizing that I even OWN measuring spoons …
It’s like pouring my soul into something with no attachment to the results. Yes, there’s a side of me that predicts the impending disaster. And wasteful is probably the best word to describe the consequences of my time in the kitchen – in both time and money. But while I so meticulously work at preparing my next mess, I’m in a zone of nothingness. No worrying. No thinking about the past or the future. Just focusing on what I’m doing in the “now”.
As I write this, I realize that there’s actually a third lesson to my maple-pecan cornmeal bread tragedy:
That a true labour of love is about living in the moment, with no attachments to the results and therefore no judgements.
Just because we’re not good at something doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy it – or that we shouldn’t do it.
So tell me, awesome readers, what’s your “thing”? What’s something that you know you will never be good at and yet still enjoy?
For me, that thing is art! I keep trying to do vaguely artistic things like drawing or painting or collage or decoupage, even though my ability is on-par with your average 4-year-old. Seriously.
The thing I can’t do & have given up on is: gardening.. I have an absolute black thumb. Every indoor & outdoor plant I’ve ever been given has died on me. The only reason that the hosta and the daylilies in my yard are still alive is that I avert my eyes and hold my breath as I walk by them. Thankfully, trees are immune to my deadly power.
I’m kind-of the opposite of you when it comes to baking, though. I don’t bake often, but when I do, it always comes out exactly as it’s supposed to, and very tasty, too. I think I’d trade my baking magic for some art or gardening magic, though.
For me, it’s art…I could elaborate but why bother…you know what I mean. I will say this though, like you with the cooking, I just keep doing it because it is fun trying, even though the results are almost never up to my standards.
I’m right there with you on bread, which makes no sense bc I’m a really good baker. But I just never seem to get bread right. Also parenting?