For the last few weeks, well four now, I have been on this spiritual writing adventure. One of the techniques we have been using is called streaming. It is literally just writing from your stream of consciousness, letting the ideas flow through you like water through a creek bed. This whole notion of streaming has reminded me of a quote by Chuang Tsu, who wrote, “flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.”
Over the last few weeks, this whole notion of going with the flow has kept appearing in my life. For example, last night I was watching an episode of Chopped and one of the contestants who had made it to the desert round had started out with the idea of making a desert sushi made gummy worms, cashew butter and some sort of puffed cereal (can’t remember). It was all laid out nicely on his silicone sheet. It was looking so good until he went to roll it and it would not roll, in fact despite all efforts, plan A was obviously not going to work. When it was clear there was not going to be a desert sushi, rather then panic, he released the original vision and saw that what this desert was becoming was nougat. He stayed centered, focused, and present. And yes, he was the chopped champion.
It is amazing how liberating it is when we allow ourselves to go with the flow. The other night, I was trying to make these butternut squash tortellini with brown butter sauce, which according to the food network was supposed to look something like this. My filling came out as I wanted it to with an awesome taste and texture. So I was excited about the next step. Ok, so where is my pastry brush. No pastry brush in sight, I chose to go with the flow. Given that these wonton squares were small, I figured I could use a piece of paper towel or even my finger to wet the skins and fold them. Great idea and it worked, well kind of, but then my tortellini were having problems staying tortellinied together – not even sure that is a word. The first few I tried were just not staying in their little triangles and the stuffing was leaking out. So I looked at this stack of wonton wrappers and the filling and I thought they might make these great raviolis. So rather, then do these additional folds which were not destined to work that day, I started by just sealing them into little triangular raviolis. These little pasta creations, however, seemed to have a mind of their own, either that or I had put too much filling in the middle, because they were still leaking butternut squash and were starting to look like leaky baby diapers L. Then I though hmm, what if we just gave the filling more space. And so I went with the flow and made dozens of ravioli, which were mounds of this amazing butternut squash and ricotta cheese mixture in between two wonton wrappers. Then I ran out of wonton wrappers and still had tons of squash mixture. Just keep going with the flow. I grabbed a package of egg roll wrappers, cut them in quarters, and kept on making ravioli. Stuck them in the freezer until they were ready to cook and they came out well. Tossed them with a brown butter sauce and decided to use up the amaretto I had left from my Mexican wedding cakes from the other day and made an amaretto and butter glaze to pour over them. Before we sat down to eat, I asked a friend of mine to take a picture of the dish for me as I might want to blog about it, but hmm – the batteries in her camera needed to be charged. I am sure I will make them again and post it as a recipe and next time I will have charged camera with me. However, one thing is for sure, my guests and I were all happy I had gone with the flow and that at the end of the day, the food was great, and the conversation enjoyable and we all had an enjoyable time.
Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and not sweat the small stuff. It is all going to work out just as it should and it will all be good.