Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Emote & Food. Not Emotional Eating.

WOMANIST
One day while facilitating the afternoon group with my guys at work I was speaking about expressing emotions. The overall theme with them and most men is to "stuff" their emotions, repress, ignore, and shut down. Stonewalling at it's finest. I often tell them at times it's best to stew in those ugly, negative emotions that cause pain because once we process and make sense of it, we lead emotionally healthy lives. I then began to think of an analogy while a client was speaking about how he ignores his overwhelming emotions and I said...
I don't know if it's just me, but I think about food...maybe it's because I'm greedy.
Sometimes you just have to sit in that pit of emotions.
Some of the best products come about from having to sit in something.
It's like ribs, you poke holes in the meat, then let it marinade overnight, then throw them on the grill and they're the best ribs ever.
Like slow cooking food in the crockpot, it's some of the best and most tender food.

That's exactly how emotion's are, I'll leave you with a quote from a book I'm reading  and a quote from somewhere else that I can not recall, "intense emotions have a dissolving effect which can incapacitate the synthesizing function of the mind" and "express your emotions and you control them, repress your emotions and they control you". 
DOMESTICATED
So one day after work, I walk in the door and kick off my shoes before stepping on the carpet as I usually do. I walk to the kitchen to begin unpacking the Tubberware from my lunch bag, turn to the right and glance at the microwave. Through the glass I see a white paper bag with a smiley face on it. I'm thinking "WTF! Who been in here?!" extremely suspicious. So I open the microwave, grab the bag slowly and proceeded to open it cautiously and inside was this...



I knew who the culprit was...JUSTYN! LOL! I was fat happy kid and it was delicious. I warmed it up as I do all my pastry treats. It had a little too much icing on it for me, but the savory sweet combo of the bacon and maple was delicious. You can see how thick the icing is in the pic. I've never really been big on icing, I typically scrape it off of cakes and cupcakes. I enjoy a thin layer of icing like the ones on Krispy Kreme doughnuts or like the lemon icing on a poundcake. 

Food is love and I can't give everyone my love.

So...I really have to stop letting picky people try my food. I am incredibly sensitive about the food I prepare, especially when it's something I believe I've done a really good job at. Not to mention, I believe it's rude to act repulsed by the food someone makes. One time I made pico de gallo and my friend who doesn't like tomatoes insisted on eating my damn pico. I said "don't eat it if you don't like tomatoes, I don't have time for your pickiness" and what does she do, goes and grabs a chip and eats some of my pico. Don't you know I wanted to punch her in the face when she ran to the trash can like my ish was disgusting. So last night I made vegan whole wheat waffles to go with the leftover fried chicken I made Sunday. I was super excited, like SUPER EXCITED because these waffles still tasted like..waffles! All I did was replace the 1 egg that was needed with natural apple sauce and I used almond milk instead of cow's milk. It was totally an accident that they ended up vegan, I mainly wanted to substitute the eggs in the waffles so as to not add cholesterol and I had almond milk in my fridge so there it was. I didn't add sugar to the waffles as the recipe called for, but I added cinnamon. Rule of thumb when replacing eggs, 1 egg=1/4 cup of apple sauce=half a banana. Next time I may try the banana just to try it out, but my bananas weren't brown enough for me. So anyways, Justyn and I had chicken and waffles on Monday along with some leftover baked veggie egg rolls I made Sunday as well. He tore it up! I didn't tell him they were vegan until after he took a bite and told me what he thought of em. So I decide "hey lemme take this small waffle to work and share with my coworker" who is trying to eat healthier. Mind you, she eats awfully, like most Americans (as if I'm not American, but whatevs). So I offer her my vegan waffle, she says "let me try this without the syrup" rips a piece of the waffle, chews, frowns her face, and slide the plate back over to me. Of course, my feelings are hurt, especially when another coworker who eats even worse than her says "you're eating that cardboard!" and falls out laughing. I warm up my waffle, go to my office and chow down on the waffle I set aside for myself and what she didn't want. Was I pissed? Yes. Anger is a secondary emotion, so my primary emotion was hurt and maybe embarrassment. I'm pretty sensitive about my food because I only cook/offer food to people I care about, so when they're not pleased well you know...The lesson I learned was, never offer healthy food to people who add salt to pizza. I enjoy trying to offer healthy alternatives for usually fatty foods to people, but everyone isn't going to be as open. So I will no longer offer my healthy foods to people and that's just that. Will I still cook for our work potlucks, sure. I'll just make sure there's plenty of lard and grease for them ;) Now I see why chefs become so rude to the judges on Chopped when they dislike their food. It's like disrespecting their baby. TUH!







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