Why I love to cook...

it's simple, really. it helps me face the day. my life. the world. sometimes, when it feels so, i don't know, out of control and open for way too much consideration, cooking something amazing -- even if it's just the best spiced olives you've ever had -- makes me slow my mind and just be. nothing does that for me like cooking and baking does. writing, which is my other escape, is now also my career. actual, making a living career. and although the writing i do to just fly away in my brain is far different than that i do in my day-to-day, it takes a lot of my emotional energy, in a good way, but still.

cooking takes just as much of me emotionally, but because of its tactile, specific hand-eye coordination basis, i can forget myself a bit more.

i've been cooking up a storm. i'm sorry i haven't been more forthcoming of late. i've been really stressed and crying a bunch. oh, no worries. i'm probably just pre-menopausal or something. or not. who cares? but i've been lost in a cloud of self-doubt and all that kind of fun stuff, so while i've been cooking, i haven't been sharing as much with you guys. and, because of that, i feel as if i need to go back through the cookbooks from which i've been cooking and get back on the ball of sharing with you. recook some of the things i've done or find new and exciting dishes in the cookbooks i haven't shared with you and dive in with a vengeance.

my heart always lightens when i'm in the kitchen, immersed in my pots and pans, my breadmaker and covered in flour. that's why i decided to become so proficient at cooking. because it brings out the peace in me. and to have it satisfy, to convey my emotions as succinctly as it does in such a visceral way, i wanted to be sure that whatever i created had the heart and the quality that would bring joy to others.

yes, i know. how incredibly polyanna and corny, but it's true. i love to cook, because it allows me to show, in a more tangible way, what i'm about inside. sometimes, late at night like this, after a rough moment when i'm lost and alone, i think about chucking it all, selling everything, packing up my kiddles and moving to france to truly experience food and cooking in the way my heart tells me -- with every fiber of my being. then travel the world -- morocco, turkey, egypt, spain, argentina, norway, germany -- and learn more, experience more, see more. to cook with such amazing skill, now that would be something. to learn so much more about what cooking is about, to give in to its siren song -- i think about it a lot. more and more, actually. and, yet, writing calls me with the same vengeance, the same jealous want. but, to do both? to be both and immerse myself in the possibilities of all that this passionate need inside of me begs me to do? is it ever too late to live life to its fullest and dream so large that it fills your soul to bursting?

i don't think so.
i don't think so.