positive pointing #69: my master chef

The difference between Eric and myself is that

when I'm trying to find the best cereals in aisle number 5,
He is having two lobster tails wrapped up in the seafood section.

I collect crock pot recipes, invest in a rice-maker, carefully edit our grocery list down to the "perfect" ingredients and find peace in getting the same things every time; anything to help with speed. I'd like to make my cooking time efficient and predictable so that it passes before I can get too grumpy or it gets too dark outside or I loose my appetite altogether from the quiet stress and heat of it all.

Eric buys new food everytime we're at the store. Slightly exotic, never pre-cooked and well, just slightly poetic looking. The length of the preparation directions do not discourage him, neither do the amount of dishes piling up in the sink as he dives deeper into dinner development. Chopping endless amounts of onions, peppers and leafy greens do nothing to slow down his undeniable rhythm, which only gets more snappy as the second hand slowly glides around the silver face on our kitchen wall. Nor does he notice that each burner on our tiny stove is occupying it's own boiling pot and or that he must reset the timer multiple times to include and calculate each one. He soliders on, peppering and spicing like he's jumping rope rather than managing a brood of steaming pots and wandering bits of vegetables that seem to have an agenda all their own.

While my dishes, I like to think, require a sophistated tongue able to pick up on each small, subtle flavor---the honest taste of wheat and small sweetness of a carrot---Eric flavors show no such modesty. A livid pack of salty, fresh, citrus, spicy and creamy rush through my mouth, seemingly abhorred at being kept in the pot or skillet for so long. They race around, putting on an achingly heartfelt and gloriously breath taking performance before happily exiting the stage, satisfied they've done exactly what they came to do.

Questions like "How did you make that flavor so strong?" do not find equality with answers like "Just a little bit of pepper." So I say my thank you and sit back with quiet wonder, assuming that the stove, the oven, the knives and those unsuspecting cutting boards are actually powerful weapons of ancient, dark magic that disguise themselves into ordinary, everyday objects only to come alive at the master's touch. I am still an unwilling apprentice to that magic, happy (daresay, overjoyed) to stay in the realm of 30-minute meals and following recipes so closely I could cry for the lack of required creativity. I'm shamefully satisfied that, at least, nothing has burned and that the sink has only four pieces that will need washing when I arrive at the other end of this (very tiring and isolatingly boring) endeavor which insists that I be banished to Kitchen only to be freed when I have produced something worthy of being set on a plate.

Upon quick reflection, my story is very similiar to a once-upon princess who was told to spin hay into gold and kept in small room until she was able to do so. Unfortunately, there is no Rumpelstiltskin to do the job for me. There is also no need for me to promise my necklace, my ring or my first-born child to him if he does, so that's a relief and a comfort.

Eric does it. I can do it. I just need to take it slow. Don't give myself a hard time. It'll come when it comes. Make mistakes. Do what I can with what I know and what I have, right?

I can't help thinking that a magic wand would also be helpful.