Becoming a Cook

I have been cooking since I was a little girl. One of my earliest food memories was when I was probably three or four, perhaps younger. My mother would sit me on the kitchen floor or at the table with a pot of water and a spoon and tell me to stir. Over time, ingredients slowly were added to my repertoire as my mother’s sous chef (that is not what she called me at the time). I always loved baking with my mother. I was not so crazy about cooking with her; I developed my interest in cooking as a survival technique as she was not the best cook. However, I loved baking with her. I remember how meticulous she was. She had her dry measuring cups and her wet measuring cups and there was always a knife present as she prepared to bake one of her amazing creations like her lemon ricotta bobka cake or her rugelach. I still make her lemon ricotta bobka cake today and it still fills the house with the same aroma I remember as a child. Over the years, I have become increasingly comfortable in the kitchen.
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Up!

I remember when I first started the Zenful Kitchen reading a piece by Warren Caterson aka Chef Warren who wrote about being criticized at times for not having pictures in his blogs. He had written one that had pictures which looked as if they were created on an etch a sketch. (Yes Warren, I did read that blog post.) It made me want to go out and buy an etch a sketch. I understand what he was saying though. I know we eat with our eyes, or so I have been told, although some of my friends don’t look long enough to take it in, they just eat. Not always having access to a camera (probably should put that on my wish list); sometimes I do not put pictures of my food with my blogs. One of these days, I will invest in one of my own or have a professional photographer in my life who is here taking photos as I am preparing something.
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Unlearning can be empowering

Recently, I read a quote by Charles Bukowski who wrote, “Knowledge is knowing as little as possible.” When I read it, it resonated with my spirit. Perhaps in part, because I have come to this place in my spiritual journey where I realized that there was much that I believed, but did not know for myself. I had believed this is the way things were because of what others had told me all my life. One of the things I came to realize was that I had to unlearn all that I had been taught and then put myself in this place of rediscovery. What would I do, if I were in a place of creating new knowledge and new experiences in my life? What have I not yet created, accomplished, because of what I thought I knew.
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