“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”
— Julia Child
What keeps you out of the kitchen? For many people, it’s a fear that they might make a mistake. That their creations will be tasteless or inedible. That they will be a failure.
I’ve been cooking since I was 10 years old and have always had a fearless attitude about cooking. When I was 10 or 11, I used to get up early in the morning and make donuts for my dad to take to work! That was pretty fearless. And w/in weeks of marrying for the first time, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my in-laws!
I’ve made mistakes, sure. But most of them were not a big deal. Rarely have I made something that no one would eat. OR that was just awful.
Two exceptions stand out in my memory.
The first one is from when I was 10 or 11. My mom’s main cookbook was The Joy of Cooking. In it was a recipe for Half Hour Chocolate Cake. I made that and it turned out terrible. It was dry to the point of being inedible. It turned out that I had forgotten to add the eggs. Never make that mistake.
The other exception was when I made Liver & Onions for my first husband. He grew up eating that and I had never really had it, and certainly never made it. But I was fearless! And it was awful. I couldn’t eat it. I think we threw it out, even.
The point is, that when you’re in the kitchen cooking dinner, you can’t go wrong. You need that “what the hell” attitude! If you follow the directions at least 90 percent of the time, you will succeed.
(There is a caveat here. The distinction between cooking and baking. Baking is very much and exact science!)
What I want for my clients is that they have a What The Hell attitude about their cooking. The confidence that comes from knowing that failure isn’t likely.
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