Fun in the Kitchen!

Today the weather turned cold, gloomy, & rainy and with the moon in Cancer, it seemed the perfect time to make some mischief in the kitchen. I have always loved preparing foods, inheriting some of my mom's genius ability simply to throw things together and produce an exquisite flavor. She never used measurements nor followed any specific recipe. Instead, she intuited what was needed and how much, always leaving us awestruck as we dug into her delicious dishes.

In my pre-disability days, I did all the food prep. I loved playing the traditionally female, domestic role and enjoyed housecleaning, laundry, kitchen chores, etc. Must be my Venus in Virgo. These days, though, Jack does it all. And while I am eternally grateful, I realized that I actually don't like being waited on hand and foot. I want to do it all myself! I feel like a kid shouting,"I wanna do it!" ;)

As I become stronger, I am regaining some of my lost independence. Today, I walked (w/my walker) into the kitchen, had a plan of action in mind, and with assistance from Jack, got started on making a natural candy confection: Date-Cacao balls. I could do the first step on my own. I stood at the counter, leaning on it for support, and pitted barhi dates. It was great fun with my fingers all sticky and gooey, as the barhis are like caramel, both in texture and flavor. After the dates were pitted, Jack joined me and added raw cacao chunks and vanilla nectar. Then, all the ingredients were blended in the food processor creating a smooth paste. To this paste, Jack sprinkled in dry coconut shreds. Now it was his turn to get his hands sticky as he kneaded the mixture- what fun!

The mixture was pretty soft and gooey, impossible to roll into balls, so I suggested refrigerating it for an hour to let it firm up. Then, we rolled it into balls and coated them with raw cacao powder.

Jack and I munched the "dough" as we made these and YUM! Tomorrow we sample the finished product.

So I can't do it all myself right now. It's OK, really it is. I have truly come to appreciate the joys of collaboration. I was always a bit of a control freak, and while I really did enjoy doing all the housekeeping, I know that I did much of it myself so I could do it MY WAY. Kind of like Monica from Friends ;) Now, I have learned more patience and tolerance for other ways. It's not about having a "perfect" end result; in fact, things may not even turn out quite right. But the point of a collaboration is to work together, placing the importance more on the human interaction than on the end product. While it's important that the candy turns out, and I know it will, it's more important that Jack and I had fun together and felt good about each other when we finished, which we did!

Being disabled has forced me to rely on others for just about everything. This has been hard on me, because I was always focused on having things turn out the just the way I wanted. Now, I'm realizing that obtaining the "perfect" outcome was a short-sighted goal; getting along with people and having them feel better about their time with me was something I often overlooked, and I have had to slow down to a crawl to "get it." So, I am trying to use this time to learn, reflect, and improve. It's one of my silver linings :)