Figuring me out
Mar. 15th, 2023 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shesingsnowI have this vision of myself as a person who cooks. Pancakes on Sundays; dried beans come to life; roast chicken in the oven and fresh cookies always on the counter. Much of this vision comes from years of the Food network and various forms of social media that tell me this is who I should be. Plus, I'm a fairly grounded Taurus who loves this idea of the farmhouse with kitchen garden.
Toward that end, I have a well-stocked kitchen. Appliances of all sorts, stopping just short of a pizza oven. Staples of all sorts: a variety of lentils, rices, dried peas, flours, sugars, herbs, and spices. Pots, pans, etc. Many cookbooks, because I love to read cookbooks. (I recently gave away ~20 cookbooks and that hardly made a dent.)
The kitchen is overflowing. There's not enough room. It's the kitchen of the person I think I should be.
The thing is, while I do cook every now and again, I mostly don't cook. I mostly work and read. My life is full, but it's not full of cooking. My life doesn't resemble Mark Bittman's, in which I come home and "relax by cooking". On Saturday mornings, I relax by loading up a spreadsheet. John and I - with low community transmission - go out to eat. I certainly do not have a garden.
It occurred to me last night: do I need a kitchen full of staples? Am I really ever going to make homemade pizza? Am I going to be a person who makes bread? Will I really stop buying canned beans?
Note that I live in New England, where weather could keep me trapped at home. (But somehow, that has never gotten me to use my collection of staples. Instead, I stock up with new groceries against the weather.)
If I separate the Food Network/Farmhouse version of myself from the real version of myself, it's likely that I could pare down a lot. That scares me, though - scarcity thinking, I think. It's always smart to plan against a rainy day. But my kitchen makes me feel guilty.
First world problems. I am incredibly lucky.
Anyway, the bigger picture is: how many of my perceptions about who I should be are formed from external influences? What am I doing because the world tells me I should be doing it?
Toward that end, I have a well-stocked kitchen. Appliances of all sorts, stopping just short of a pizza oven. Staples of all sorts: a variety of lentils, rices, dried peas, flours, sugars, herbs, and spices. Pots, pans, etc. Many cookbooks, because I love to read cookbooks. (I recently gave away ~20 cookbooks and that hardly made a dent.)
The kitchen is overflowing. There's not enough room. It's the kitchen of the person I think I should be.
The thing is, while I do cook every now and again, I mostly don't cook. I mostly work and read. My life is full, but it's not full of cooking. My life doesn't resemble Mark Bittman's, in which I come home and "relax by cooking". On Saturday mornings, I relax by loading up a spreadsheet. John and I - with low community transmission - go out to eat. I certainly do not have a garden.
It occurred to me last night: do I need a kitchen full of staples? Am I really ever going to make homemade pizza? Am I going to be a person who makes bread? Will I really stop buying canned beans?
Note that I live in New England, where weather could keep me trapped at home. (But somehow, that has never gotten me to use my collection of staples. Instead, I stock up with new groceries against the weather.)
If I separate the Food Network/Farmhouse version of myself from the real version of myself, it's likely that I could pare down a lot. That scares me, though - scarcity thinking, I think. It's always smart to plan against a rainy day. But my kitchen makes me feel guilty.
First world problems. I am incredibly lucky.
Anyway, the bigger picture is: how many of my perceptions about who I should be are formed from external influences? What am I doing because the world tells me I should be doing it?
