In her "Old Fashioned Recipe Book", Carla Emery wrote that there are a few good basics to cooking:
For instance, "a person needs a recipe maybe to guide them through the first few times." But it seems that what she's really getting at is that to develop a sense of those basics while adjusting ourselves towards the wonderful magic of winging it, but with a framework of understanding, of ourselves and our ingredients, and preferably with an understanding of the source of those ingredients. "To make real homestead kraut, first you grow your cabbage."
A friend suggested that knowing what we are looking for is different from trying to find out what is known or not known before we get involved in something and then gauging it against outcomes to be able to identify and analyze differences.
It's a bit like it used to be when I was preparing to peek around some rocky outcrop that would supposedly allow me to see far along the coastline I was heading along in my kayak. Every time I wanted to take those peeks, there was the challenge of the kayak's bow riding out there in front of me catching whatever weather was there to be found - more likely than not, whipping headwinds that would rip that bow around so that I would have to re-adjust everything and get back ready to try again.
I could see the whitecaps out there; it wasn't like it was any surprise. After a while I had begun just building up a good dose of forward momentum and shooting myself out into the open view of whatever was out there that I would need to contend with. Usually it was just more paddling. Traveling. Journeying. On and on.
What I learned of myself is that I had some basics under tenuous control, and I was always learning a few more basics...
So:
- what do I know or not know of the people I'll be with, be working with, be happening upon?
- what do I know, or not know, about myself?
For instance, "a person needs a recipe maybe to guide them through the first few times." But it seems that what she's really getting at is that to develop a sense of those basics while adjusting ourselves towards the wonderful magic of winging it, but with a framework of understanding, of ourselves and our ingredients, and preferably with an understanding of the source of those ingredients. "To make real homestead kraut, first you grow your cabbage."
A friend suggested that knowing what we are looking for is different from trying to find out what is known or not known before we get involved in something and then gauging it against outcomes to be able to identify and analyze differences.
It's a bit like it used to be when I was preparing to peek around some rocky outcrop that would supposedly allow me to see far along the coastline I was heading along in my kayak. Every time I wanted to take those peeks, there was the challenge of the kayak's bow riding out there in front of me catching whatever weather was there to be found - more likely than not, whipping headwinds that would rip that bow around so that I would have to re-adjust everything and get back ready to try again.
I could see the whitecaps out there; it wasn't like it was any surprise. After a while I had begun just building up a good dose of forward momentum and shooting myself out into the open view of whatever was out there that I would need to contend with. Usually it was just more paddling. Traveling. Journeying. On and on.
What I learned of myself is that I had some basics under tenuous control, and I was always learning a few more basics...
So:
- what do I know or not know of the people I'll be with, be working with, be happening upon?
- what do I know, or not know, about myself?
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