Practice Makes Confy

A few days ago I wrote a post which I called Peeling The Potatoes Yourself in which I talked about how I made steak and mashed potatoes and found such...great new insight into peeling the potatoes myself. This post is sort of a follow up on that post. The steaks that I made with those mashed potatoes turned out good! I am very proud of how those steaks turned out, and while I am not a professional so I don't know how good it was it was good to me, and I loved eating it! it was not dry and the seasoning I used, an outside smoke flavor sauce, was really good! I loved the way it turned out so much that I have made it twice since then, and each time I make it I get more and more comfortable with it(though I should start using a cooking thermometer). I can't say that they get better and better every time, but I get more comfortable and confidence in my ability to cook it, and I think that matters. in cooking, I am finding that you cannot just try once and that's it. whether you knock it out of the park your first time or you strike out miserably, you have to try again either way. the more times you cook a dish the more comfortable you will be with it and the more comfortable you are the more your confidence grows and the more your confidence grows the more daring and bold you become in experimenting with it, and trying new ways of cooking that dish. sometimes in life, we feel that if we succeed then that's it. we can stop. and we say that if you fail, that's when you try again. but maybe, you try again either way. maybe the trick is to keep going on and on and on, whether you get it right or not.

Peeling The Potatoes Yourself

A few weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago, I had a friends watching friends marathon, since I had never watched the series before and over SBC in Boston got hooked and so bought the entire series package. anyways, a few of my friends came and I also cooked meat loaf and mashed potatoes. anyways, Brent Bailey was one of the friends who came over(which  I find kinda amusing because it seems to me that Brent gets more excited about spending time with me when I am cooking, than when I am not...seriously, I never see him more eager to spend time with me that when my cooking is involved) and when he asked me if there was anything he could do to help, I told him he could help me peel the potatoes. I am not sure whether I ever really thought he would do it, but he did, and he ended up peeling all the potatoes since I had not idea how to use the potatoe peeler I bought and he also helped me mash the potatoes. watching Brent Bailey peeling  and mashing potatoes in my kitchen was definely one of the highlights of my entire time at ACU, but last night I made mashed potatoes and steak(2 thin Ribeyes to be exact)and peeling the potatoes, cutting the potatoes, mashing the potatoes all by myself felt...really good! it was an altogether different feeling doing it all by myself,without Brent Bailey's help. not a better feeling or a worse feeling just a...different feeling. It really felt good to know that having Brent's help was good and fun, but that I could also do it by myself and do just a good a job on my own as with him. it feels good knowing that you can ask for help because you want the help and not because you need the help. cooking can be done either on your own, or with help. and neither way is wrong, but maybe if you are asking for help without learning to do it on your own as well, then maybe that's a problem. maybe its a problem if you want to be married(to a specific person)without also learning to live just a good and beautiful life on your own as you would with someone else. maybe it will feel just as good being in a relationship knowing that you could do just fine and beautiful on your own as with them, just...different ways of living.
Cooking/Life Lesson: on your own or with someone else, but learn to do it on your own so you don't depend on help every time.
and btw, it turned out SOOO good!!! those were steaks was amazing!!!