Facing our Fears

For the past couple of weeks at meditation the talk has been on fear. Recognizing what is behind it, if it is a healthy or unhealthy type of fear, and ways to deal with these emotions so that they do not become hindrances. As I reflect on these thoughts I know there are some large areas of my life where I have become very good at standing in my own way. But there are also smaller areas where this is surfacing. I have been very nervous to not only start this blog but to share it with people. Will I be exposing myself too much? Will I post often enough and interestingly enough? Should I be using my time for better purposes?
And then there is the way that fear and anxiety creeps into cooking.

Yesterday I attended a Super Bowl party. This was exactly my kind of Super Bowl party where more attention was paid to the food, the funny commercials, and mocking the half-time show than actually watching the game. The host made a wonderful version of "chili" morchilla and chorizo. A grilled Caesar salad was whipped up and presented alongside a wonderful assortment of cheeses, smoked salmon, and childhood favorite dips.

Happy handful of remaining chips

In the midst of challenging myself to eat only food I have previously purchased in an effort to get my budget back under control, I realized my pantry contained ingredients to make spinach artichoke dip. I also has a couple of sweet potatoes to fry into homemade chips. The chips came out beautifully, crisping up a bright orange to contrast with the gray day. The dip, usually one of my stand by party recipes, left something to be desired. I scrapped the very last bit of mayonnaise into the bowl  and even with the last of the sour cream there wasn't enough creaminess to add to the current amount of ingredients already in the bowl. At this point there wasn't enough time to break my rule of staying away from the grocery so I just grated on a bit of extra cheese and took it for what it was, knowing the crowd of foodies in attendance.

There is a wonderful piece of advice from Julia Child in My Life in France. She advises cooks to never apologize for food served because if it is good it just makes you look like you are fishing for compliments and if it is bad it forces your guests to falsely give assurance that everything is wonderful.  I need to practice following this advice. All said and done the dip was fine but not as I had hoped. I think knowing you don't have to apologize for mistakes should remove some fear, which is part of the path to happiness and enlightenment.

Hello Dollys make an excellent bedtime snack

Plus most of the cooks I know are our own worst critics. The dessert for the Superbowl party, Hello Dollys, were made from the host's mother's recipe. He wasn't satisfied in much the same way I wasn't with my dip; after all the hardest things to cook are what your mother makes well.  But the leftover bars I am eating as I type this are certainly contributing to my current happiness.