Rhino Ramblings

Cookie Cutter Rhino

Although some (all?) of you may find this hard to believe, I generally can spend weeks thinking about the next blog topic. Never fully thought out and formed in advance, but at least bouncing around in my head.  This one is straight off the cuff as it came to me last evening.  This will be a true adventure though my meandering mind to see where we end up.

Growing up the phrase “we are cooking with Crisco” was the common go to when an activity of any sort was underway.  I had always thought it was part of an ad campaign by Crisco but see no evidence to that effect.  There is an older version (the exact original saying is unknown) of “cooking with gas” that may be based on a mid-1900’s gas stove ad campaign.  Growing up we did not have a gas stove, but we definitely were always cooking with Crisco.  There was always Crisco nearby and most anything we cooked seemed to include it.  When done cooking, the leftover Crisco would be poured or ladled from the pan to a jar for future usage.  Suffice it to say, not the healthiest of choices. I have not bought / used Crisco in decades.

I was cooking last night and realized I was figuratively “cooking with Crisco”: in that I was smoothly on a roll with my third home-cooked meal in as many weekends.  In recent years Doordash served as my provider of choice. Even so, any delivered meal was transformed to some extent or another as I mixed in sides or added fresh vegetables or other foodstuffs.  I do enjoy cooking. I lost that initiative and would claim in my mind it was easier to order than cook. Maybe easier, but in the end not faster (compare prep and cook time to some hour long delivery waits); certainly not cheaper (the delivery fee is likely more than the cost of the ingredients), and not healthier.  The healthy comes in high for motivation as my cholesterol levels finally reached a level the doctor did not like. When presented with dietary changes and assuming I do not radicalize my tastes like eating seafood – ugh – having more control over use of fresh ingredients and shifting to whole wheat products and brown rice or even cauliflower rice and more nuts and similar adjustments are better suited to home cooking. (note that I already eat very little red meat and eat a fair amount of vegetables). 

That is part of the why I have gone back to a home-cooking first orientation (Doordash is still there as the need or want arises).  The reason I thought to write this blog is the how I cook and what it says about me in general.  Some people are strict step by step recipe followers; others are impromptu “give me some ingredients and I will make a meal” types.  I fall squarely in between the two extremes.  I need a start – I would be horrible at Chopped.  Give me a a base recipe with a starting set of ingredients.  I have no trouble improvising from there – especially if the base recipe has weird ingredients I am unlikely to have or ones I do not like, so there is a need to improvise.  Lat night’s  meal is a good case in point – crock pot pork chops in onion and mushroom gravy.  For those who know me well, the mushrooms were not going into any meal I make (or eat).  I googled substitutes for mushrooms. Onions were the main substitute mentioned – pork chops in an onion onion gravy somehow seemed redundantly the same thing twice.  So in went some cabbage I had on hand, along with sauerkraut and carrot and the aforementioned onions.  The result – deliciousness. 

This is me – I need a start.  And then I can go in different directions.  I fully embrace myself as a visionary.  But that vision cannot come out of nowhere.  I need a seed from which I can then germinate with my own thoughts and ideas and ideals.  This is perhaps the reason for one of my less than positive traits.  Someone says something, and with that seed I will explode 9sometimes seemingly literally) with a “No, not that, but…” or “Yes, that is a thought, but …”  I have strived in recent years to be better at acknowledging the seeder and not reacting too fast or as forcefully.  Nevertheless, I have the compulsion to move off the provided recipe steps and seek a broader or different set of ingredients and eventual outcomes.  Sometimes, like messing with food ingredients, I end up with a stinker and have to restart the process.  Regardless, I have a strong and (forgive the egotistic statement) earned self-confidence in both my cooking with food and cooking with ideas skillset to forge ahead. 

To view this in an opposite way (you would not be off-track to read into this my thoughts on both personal and professional opportunities that are currently present in my life), I would be uncertain and lacking confidence if I was given a challenge with no set starting point or basic “recipe” guidance from which I can diverge.  And I would be ill at ease and not interested or excited if given a set in stone recipe of how to cook or think or act or work in which that divergence of thoughts and actions are kept in check to preserve a mis-begotten concept of efficiency in sameness.  I have been more than fortunate to not have either condition existing in my professional career to date (ok – not true, I did leave one job at NASA due to a boss who had no respect for who I was and how I worked – but once n 47 years is pretty good).  I have re-found that environment and the joy it brings me in my personal cooking life.  I will need to ensure I keep or find a similar environment moving forward in my professional and broader personal life. Time and opportunity will tell the tale going forward.