Failure

I gotta tell the truth: Not everything I cook turns out great. Yes, a whole lot is yummy but I have some busts as well. Last night I made  pork recipe for dinner. The site I grabbed it from gave it 5 out of 5 stars. WRONG. The rub that went on the pork definitely had potential which I may use at a later date, but the last part of the recipe…blech.

My reason for blogging about my recipe failure is that I had a really rough day at work and I needed to get some perspective. Yes, I can hear your brain churning….Recipe failure = Bad day at work? WTF? For those who don’t know me, I moved to Texas for my job and to say it didn’t work out as expected is an understatement. (Hear that hysterical/maniacal laughter in the background? That is coming from my family and friends who have listened patiently to me these last 3 years.) So I left work yesterday feeling especially dismal and was really, really, REALLY beating up on myself.

And then I made a new recipe…and it sucked.

After sitting in my favorite comfy chair and bawling my eyes out for an embarrassingly long time, I finally remembered…

Quit beating up on yourself if you try/make/do something and it isn’t what you thought it would be. The only way anyone ever improves ANYthing is to take action/try/give it shot…and with that comes some spectacular successes and some dismal failures. If I don’t try, I have a guaranteed 100% fail rate. At least if I try, I open the door to (at a bare minimum) a tiny percentage of success, yes? Like I used to tell my kids, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Yes, I am really good at my job. Yes, I am a great cook. Considering the alternative, trying is much better than doing nothing. AND, I am only responsible for MY part. If the basic ingredients are inferior, I am going to get inferior results. I might be able to make the result slightly better through hard work and creativity, but realistically….how does that saying go? You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear? Yeah, that’s the one.

So last night’s dinner? FAIL. That’s ok because tonight I am making stir fry with a tested recipe that is wonderful. (Plus, I get to use this gorgeous baby bok choi I got at Costco, of all places!) As for work? Still a work in progress…..