What's Cooking with Jean
Friday, April 04, 2008 Why nothing has been cooking with Jean

My new inferiority complex has kept me from posting. Sure, I’ve been busy and out of the country for a couple of weeks, but honestly I have become slightly obsessed with everything I do not know about sausages in their casings, brining meat, wine, truffles and Gruyere. This is a force trying to wreak havoc on what I enjoy and love. No doubt about it.

As mentioned in the last post, books on food haven’t help. They’ve hindered. Remember when you walked into college orientation as a freshman? Suddenly you were a small fish in a very big sea. Maybe you were able to avoid that feeling by going to a college the size of your high school, but then came the job market. Yes, you know that feeling. Well, I’ve been getting to know food snobs and those self-acclaimed “experts” in books, France, blogs and my local market. I could blame these influences on creating an inferiority complex, but I should confess to you that I feel inadequate now to type anything from my youthful, inexperienced, and middle class fingers.

Enter my mother and Granny. Thankfully, they didn’t let this larger world hinder them from enjoying food, teaching me how to pick strawberries, cut shortening into a bowl of flour, fry okra, cut corn delicately off the cob, peel a cantaloupe, and delight in putting a meal on the table. You should see the sheer delight plastered on my mom’s face as she puts her fork in the mound of fresh field peas topped with her homemade chow-chow or the sight of her petite frame wearing grubby clothes carefully picking baskets of green beans.

So, I must press on. In most areas of my life, I tend to focus on what I do not want to be. Materialistic, complacent, unaware of the larger world’s needs, inhospitable, predictable, unfaithful…the list goes on and on. But my April’s Resolution is to think about what I know I was made to be. More like my own mother who fights against these fears by loving and serving others and embracing the simple joys of this life.

Posted by Jeannie :: 9:37 AM :: 0 comments

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