Yammering About Food, Travel & Trauma

The challenge to stop the self-obsession of performance anxiety & just start living.

This is the blog I’ve been aching to start for years. Yes, literally years.

Did I? Nope. Did I even let myself read, write and enjoy food as much as I wanted? Hell nope.

Okay if you know me in real life, you may know that I have a thing for food. Perhaps you’ve heard me shriek about something food related. Or (and that’s a very few of you) have eaten something that I cooked, which means that I DEFINITELY rambled on about flavors and how I created the particular recipe, ingredient nuances and such.

In advance, I’m going to say that I’m sorry. If you are easily bored by the art, science, heart & people behind all that goes into food….SAVE YOURSELF AND BAIL NOW.

Because I’m going to keep practicing going full-on geeking out about all of the things that get me eyerolls and people falling asleep on me IRL. I know, it’s a pain to consider the aspects of food like sourcing, worker treatment, ethical meat production…and that’s all before you even get into the kitchen!

What about flavors? Recipes? Utensils? Techniques? Wouldn’t it be easier to just toss it all and go to Chipotle?

While I do love me some Chipotle (working there was the beginning of my slicing techniques as well as experiencing with ethical food sourcing first hand.), everything about food is a journey.

It is practical meditation for those who really hate sitting still and trying to get your mind to some state of ethereal blankness (who even can do that?!)

Full confession: I used to watch shows when I cooked. The focusing was just painful. Trying to absorb myself in the food also meant that I was fully absorbed in the opinions and criticism of others around me. That was just too painful. So, like everything else in my life, I shut myself off and disconnected from the process.

But lately, I’ve been waking up. Which sucks. I’d like to go back to being frozen.

You know how it feels when you’ve been on a horse for 4 hours in biting wind when the temp is barely cracking 15 degrees F and your hands are numb to the wrists?

Well when you finally get back into the truck, warming your hands in front of the blasting air that is still cold AF (but not as cold as the air you just came out of), the blood starts flowing back into your hands. And then the pain starts. Oh God, does the pain start. You moan, you shake, you twitch around and wish that your hands would just stay numb because it’s all just much.

Yeah, it’s the same way with feelings. It’s the same way when you being to learn how to feel again, or for the first time. The thawing out period is pure agony and you want to DIE.

Well here we are, friends. Learning how to be “alive”.

As opposed to being a robot, which I’d much prefer but c’est la vie.

This blog (also I realize that I’m starting out in my old blog on Medium so it’s not a fresh thing — yet) is not just about food. It’s about travel, trauma research + healing and other random parts of life that make me, me.

Brace yourself for horse analogies ;) there will be plenty!

I hope that through me learning about myself, you will learn about yourself.

And that by tackling the hardest things first, it will lay the ground for some really, really good things.

Because as C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we have left behind.”

There are many things in the world that shout to be believed. But I choose to believe that.