My Passion and Frustrations for Cooking and for Men Who Cook

Men Who Cook

Yesterday, i got an email from an unknown sender. The title somewhat caught my attention. I usually do not open emails from senders that I do not know.The subject was ” Explore Your Hidden Talent”. It could have been a virus but I opened it anyway. It turned out to be an apps that you can share on Facebook. It was the usual question and answer, multiple choice type of application. So, I religiously answered all of it and guess what my hidden talent was?

Cooking! Yes, i could not believe it either. It said “Taste drives you. Sight of food compels you. Food is compulsory to survival, and you posses the means to make it lively.”

 I don’t know how it managed to come up with that answer since the questions were really irrelevant, but I want to say that it was right.More so, I don't know whether to be happy or sad about it. True, I like the sight and smell of food, and I have wanted for so long to cook the way chefs cook. Sometimes, I have my lucky day and make a surprising dish. But most of the time disappointment hits me.But who knows, it might be a hidden talent waiting for the day when it might be a fully developed talent.

Prior to this, I have been reading articles that has a lot to say about passion in life, how to fuel it and make it a source of happiness and income. I have been wondering where I am good at and what talents I might have which I could really develop and use. This application seemed to answer my questions. Maybe, I really do have a passion for food, (aside from devouring every mouth watering dish I can afford) but then, why is it that my family members (of course they are the only ones who got to enjoy my cooking) say that my dishes lack taste, either bland or salty to some (that's their polite way of telling me my cooking sucks).But to me, it’s just perfect! And what hurts the most? When you try to make your kids eat what you cook and they go asking, who cooked? And then I say, I did, and they go..oh okay. Maybe I just need a lot of practice.

I remember when I was younger, I used to collect cut-out recipes from magazines and would make a scrapbook and put all those beautiful pictures of food and recipes together. I even collected peel-offs from canned goods. There are a lot of practical recipes you can find in food packets and cans.

I love recipes. Well, I just love reading it or just looking at the pictures and drool over those mouthwatering dishes. I do not really apply what I read because it gets me frustrated more when the outcome of the food I cooked does not look in anyway similar to the recipe I just followed. Don't you just hate that? My grandma has boxes and boxes of recipes, in index cards, some with pictures and she got this big one from Reader's Digest. I remember trying to imagine the smell of the food on the recipe and I would actually put it over my nose and sniff. Haha!

And I love watching cooking shows, cook-offs like Master Chef and Iron Chef, even Hell's Kitchen.  I even got excited when a local TV show started a cooking show with a twist that has the papalicious Chef Rob Pengson going to  viewer's kitchen and cook whatever the viewer requested. I even had the crazy idea of writing to the network if I can have Chef Rob come to my house to cook for my birthday, as a part of the show. Thank goodness I wasn't that gutsy and crazy before as I am now.

Wouldn't it be nice to have your own Jamie Oliver or Curtis Stone or even Anthony Bourdain in your own kitchen all the time, cooking for you 24/7? Or, it would be even better to snag yourself one of those men who can really cook. :) Like the three men above. 

And so, I’d like to spend a bit of my time focusing on trying to check if food and cooking is indeed my passion in life. I’ll be posting my experiences and development in trying to cultivate this hidden talent of mine. Then I would decide if I let this so-called passion for food is worth pursuing or let it die a natural death. I wish for the day when my kids will say, mom, you're the best cook ever!

By the way, here's a link to an ebook, or should I say a recipe e-book, that someone shared to me. It's really a good way to start if you've ever thought of wanting to go vegan for health or religious reasons.

Vegan on the Cheap- Great Recipes by Vegan Planet.

If you want to follow my journey with cooking, please check my food/cooking blog--> Pots and Pans.
Hope you'll like it too!

♥

Photo credits:

guidespot.com- Curtis Stone

cnn.com-Jamie Oliver

fotomagica.com-Rob Pengson