The human element. And the words ‘suck it’.

I will not remove the words ‘SUCK IT’ in one of my previous posts. This is why.

I don’t curse much on my blog. I don’t usually say ‘vulgar’ things. But there are times that I am extremely frustrated. This was one of those times. This meal took a total of 9 hours to make in the course of 2 days. I didn’t have any help. It was just me, in the kitchen, all by myself. I broke things. I dropped things. I cut myself. I spilled things. Hot oil splattered on my face. As I slipped on an oily floor. Sometimes I wanted to give up, take short cuts, or call my parents and insist on taking them to a restaurant instead. I have a fear of performing under pressure. For people. In cooking. Especially for my parents.

If I want to bitch and moan, I will. I don’t usually bitch and moan, and I think I rarely show frustration. But this was a helpful learning experience for me, cooking something I didn’t think I could, cooking for my parents which I didn’t think I could, timing everything perfectly so it all came out at precisely 6:30pm on the dot.

And I wasn’t saying ‘SUCK IT’ to any person, I was saying it to my own demons, to how I think of myself as a failure. I meant it in a humorous way. I guess I’m not the classiest person on the planet then, but this isn’t Martha Stewart’s blog, it’s mine. And at this point in time, if all I considered is ‘how many hits I get’, or how I can ‘tone down’ my personality to get more readers, or how my writing will reflect on me as a person, then I don’t want to do the blog anymore. I don’t like blogs that lack personality, or the human element. I like writing that expresses emotion, frustration, humor, anything that makes even the most simplest things interesting. I’ve seen well written blogs that were incredibly boring. I’ve seen writing that just intimidates you with big fancy words to show off the writer’s own intellect but never tries to relate to their readers.  Blogs that try to look and sound too perfect…well, sometimes they scare me. Like those people who ooze with fakeness and smile all the time. With fake Cheshire cat smiles, of course.

This is a comment from April in CT recently:

April in CT

September 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

Your blog is exactly the type I enjoy reading. It’s REAL. Cooking is supposed to be fun, experimental and enjoyable. For me that gets taken away if you spazz out about every tiny little thing being perfect. So, thank you for posting recipes and just basic life stuff I can identify with. Oh, and step by step pictures that encourage me even more to give things a try.

This is the stuff that keeps me going. Sometimes it’s sad that the readers who are complete strangers, whom I have never met, are the ones who encourage me the most in doing things the way I do. And the ones who tell me to tone it down are the people closest to me. But I guess that’s always how it will be, it’s only your friends and family who are generally more willing to be critical of you because they can be.

If I have offended anyone with my big fat ‘SUCK IT’, then you weren’t really reading my words, you were judging them, as my intentions were just to relate to the massive amount of people who have experienced frustration in their lifetime.