About
The Background
In the past two years, my life has included much upheaval. In December 2009, my husband, Dan, successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, and we moved across the country from Atlanta to Santa Monica, CA, for Dan to take a great job. This is supposed to be the time when life returns to feeling settled for a while. But I’ve struggled, both before we arrived here and since then, with how I want my life designed. To a large degree, the world is my oyster—my choices are wide open—and while I expected this to feel freeing, instead, it has often made me panic. With the help of a great life coach, supportive friends and husband, some soul-searching work, and a bit of grace, I am not panicky on the edge of depression anymore. However, even with a great support system, I have proven to have a knack for driving myself in circles. And quite frankly, I’m sick of doing that.
The Set-Up
Cooking
Food is elemental: it drives and is driven by society, family, health, illness, and mood, among others. Food is our very sustenance, and there is no escaping it. For many years, I tried doing diets of all sorts and would try to restrict myself into slim categories of eating. I tried to suppress my love of food in its various incarnations. Several years ago, I embraced my love of food. I turned toward mostly healthy, whole foods for both my well-being and the deliciousness they offer. My weight dropped and mostly stabilized. I love to cook. I cook regularly: slow food, vegan food, fermented food, quick and easy food, grass-fed and free-range food. I eat gluten-free, dairy-free (occasionally consuming non-cow cheese, but rarely), egg-free, and soy-free—a combination that’s been instrumental in me having better health than I’d ever experienced prior. I create recipes on a fairly regular basis, and some have been published in magazines. Before we left Atlanta, I had started teaching cooking classes to people who were dealing with food restrictions. I loved it, and they seemed to as well. We all walked away pumped up, inspired. . . . But when I got out here in Santa Monica, the engine driving that part of my life sputtered. I have started questioning my ability and my knowledge, and I have hesitated to really go for setting up cooking classes here. Cerebrally, I know that learning is life-long in any endeavor and that I already have much to offer with what I do know. Emotionally, I need some shoring up. Besides, one of the ways I drive myself in circles is by asking, “But is this my big picture, the very thing I want to do most?” And I loop back around again.
Research
Little makes me as happy as deciding I am interested in a topic and taking the energy and time to research it in depth. I burrow into topics deeply. Often, I then move on to a new topic when I feel knowledgeable, which I hear is related to one way of categorizing my personality type. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable skill and interest to have, and I know that research is an important part of what is coming for me.
Writing
I love to write. I started a newspaper at my elementary school when I was in 5th grade. I won awards for writing through middle and high school. At the first college I attended, I was leaning toward majoring in theater with a concentration in playwriting. When I transferred schools, though, I ended up getting deeply involved in community work, and I double-concentrated in sociology and anthropology instead. After several years of working in nonprofits during and after college, moving my way up, I left my job with a plan of writing for my living—about food and sustainability . . . with a good dose of fiction thrown in. At the time, I was having some health problems that felt overwhelming. When I left my job, I didn’t write nearly as much as I had expected. Now I’m in one of the creative capitals of the world; at a recent party we attended, I met at least 30 successful, professional writers. Whatever I do next, in my big picture, needs to include writing. But it’s scary to put myself out there and accept rejection as part of the process. Shouldn’t I embrace the rejection that comes before success? Absolutely. Is it that easy? It doesn’t seem so to me.
Photographing
I daydreamed about being a photographer when I was a kid. I may have been one of the only children in the US to have a subscription to Life Magazine. (My parents let us have one subscription a piece; that was my choice for several years.) I often saw photos I would take, but I couldn’t get my point-and-shoot cameras to take what I saw. (Naively, I didn’t realize this meant that the photos would be possible if I had the right camera techniques down.) When I met my husband, he was really into photography as a hobby—particularly landscapes and patterns. I would often say, “You should photograph that”—and point out what I was envisioning. “You should really take up photography,” he told me time and again. Gradually, I got up my courage to explore it. When my husband surprised me with a digital SLR (i.e., really good camera) of my own, I started taking classes and embraced photography. What role it will play in my professional life, I’m not sure, but I immensely enjoy creating visual art.
The Project
I’m breaking down my walls of uncertainty by combining these passions in this blog. For sixty days, I’ll make a recipe that I’ve never made before. It may, at times, be straight from a cookbook or website. More often, I expect, I’ll do some research and combine or tweak ingredients or methodology. I’ll write about the process on this blog, documenting my daily explorations whether they result in amazing food or not. And I’ll include photographs of the process and/or the final product.
What will happen during the project? How will I feel at the end? I’m not sure. But it’s an adventure to find out, so here I go.
