I have a problem. I consistently use too many spices when I cook. I’ve been doing it for years. Pasta sauce with too much oregano, soup with too much pepper, creamy mushrooms with too much thyme. You name it, I over spice it. It starts with me thinking “FLAVOR” and I dump. I either shake way too many times on the side with the little holes or I skip straight to the side with one big opening, the one that taunts me to just go for it. Afterward, I think, “Ah it will be fine because FLAVOR!” It ends with me spending the next 20 minutes trying--and only sometimes succeeding—to fix the over-spiced dish. Why do I keep doing it? I don’t know. Why do I respond snappily to my husband and son? Why do I eat gummy worms?Why do I keep dodging my writing dream with a morgue of excuses?
Human nature is complicated. As adults, we generally know what’s good and kind and right. We know, but sometimes we take what could be a delicious pasta recipe straight from an Italian mamma’s kitchen and we over-Rosemary it. Then we eat the meal anyway, because that’s what’s for dinner, and during each non-scrumptious bite we think about how we could be fine dining right now if it weren’t for that one mistake.
Our family says, “I think the pasta’s fine.” But we were going for great.
Exercising some self-control with the spice jar is a pretty easy fix. My New Year’s resolution: to measure the spices before adding them. My measuring spoons and I will become one. I have a few other resolutions too, but that one is going to make for a lot less disappointment and frustration in the kitchen, which, hey, might even bleed over into the other areas of my life that I could improve.
What is something simple you could do to stop sabotaging first-class results in your life?
