jamie's culinary wisdom translate into life's lessons

i was at dinner last night with the amazing chef, jamie viray, my cousin!!! missy, her and i were in the assembly line of dish washing. i was soaping the dishes, missy was rinsing them and she was drying them.

we started talking about her uncanny ability to create sumptuous meals while handling cutlery, the plates and noticing what missy was saying about my dish washing ability. missy said and i quote "i would do it a totally different way". jamie jumps in with "you're so OC, ate, and that's why you're cooking is not improving". uh-oh. what did she just say? before that statement was another conversation about missy faithfully following her cheesecake recipe as compared to jamie's wild passion for throwing food together and coming up with a masterpiece. we had some of her samples last night - stuffed mushrooms with improvised hot dog filling (i think it's way better than if she had stuck with the original ham stuffing) and her braised fig dessert topped with mangoes, sesame seed and honey.


but what she said about following the recipe struck me ... she said sometimes, you just have to step out of bounds. you just have to not follow the recipe. of course, she was only referring to cooking but i was translating it in life. how many times have relationships, religion or just anything we do become legalistic because we are simply following the "norm"? or the prescribed way of doing things?


she was right ... to add spice to life was to step out of our comfort zones and to do something new. i am not calling for anarchy here ... i'm just talking about being different and not being a cookie-cutter-mold type of person.

it takes much to be different. if you see jamie with her artistic outfits, you can see that she redefines beauty and she is not afraid of wearing shocking colours or wearing ensembles that may not "work" for some people. she carries herself well and she knows when to exercise her uniqueness.

so, little cuz ... thanks for that realization. i look forward to your cooking and i look forward to the many lessons you will teach me as you now embark on your journey to self-discovery. God bless always. Love you!