As a child I spent many hours in the kitchen with my grandmother and great-grandmother snapping beans, canning beans, hulling strawberries, making strawberry jam and never mind the countless hours picking the produce in order to prepare it. That is just a tiny example of my summer months in Maine with my grandparents. As I look back now I love and appreciate the time my grandparents took to show me what is now a passing way of life.
I've shared recipes and friends explain that it doesn't turn out the same, it just doesn't taste the same as yours. My answer is always the same, I guess it's the love that goes into the dish. It's not an easy thing to explain but I'm gonna give it a shot, so here goes.....
What I notice when teaching someone to cook is that there is limited patience. Everyone is in a hurry. Think about it....from the moment that our feet hit the floor in the morning, it is an on your mark, get set, GO kind of day. We are always in a hurry to get through our day, just so we can do it all over the next and the next and the next....you get the point. Not sure why that is, but that seems to be the way of life. I will admit, I went through a phase of being in a hurry and my husband made comments often that my cooking wasn't the same. At the time I couldn't understand it because I was making meals the same way I always had and he had never complained before. Then it hit me, maybe it's because I have a toddler and a new baby and I'm having to hurry to get the meals made. And you know what? That's exactly what it was! I finally figured out the secret to why people get so discouraged when cooking! We are in a hurry! When you are in a hurry, you can't possibly love anything that you are doing. Think about it, when we don't take time to smell the roses, we miss the fragrance and beauty of everything.
That is my challenge for the next dish that you make. Slow down, take your time. If the recipe tells you to melt the butter on low, don't turn the burner on medium because you want it to melt faster. There is a reason why the recipe reads the way it does. Slow down and enjoy life, it's too short to live it like a race.
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