Happy So Sad..

it continues to amaze me at how emotions can play such a huge role in life, in our pursuit of fulfillment, and in my cooking! I have wrote many times over on how it affects the food and cooking in the sense that the emotions of oneself on a daily basis controls how he or she will proceed with a dish, the meal period, the banquet event or the moment. Happiness sends us in one direction while sadness and sorrow pushes us into another, and yet anger is another beast altogether. Watch out for him! While watching in awe and listening to a local hometown hero perform at Benaroya Hall; Eddie Vedder on his ukulele tour did nothing short of kick ass and amaze! In-so-doing, he struck a few nerves in me...~utter happiness...pain...love...sorrow...excitement...passion...
death...sadness...hurt...adrenaline and aggression as well as deep emptiness. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of it. All of it. I am at times a sucker for pain. It brought a huge sense of the moment in me and where I am at in many areas of life. That is a different story and much deeper in thought and dialogue than I care to venture into at the moment, but just think deep. Between death, love, loss, hurt and happiness...the levels of emotion run wild. All of this has a profound affect on my cooking...I personally do not think bad or less than inspiring, just different. There are times when I truly should not be cooking as my state of mind just fucking sucks. I cant think, get inspired or even stay focused...thank god that has not been the case lately. The music Vedder ripped out over the amazing three hours was in a word.. incredible! There were so many songs that touched my soul...some for the better...some not. This tour was definitely full of songs that conjured up feelings of love lost in many different ways. And yet through all of this, it was a wonderful night of happiness amongst the sorrow. Happy, yet so sad. What I took away, and that I hope you will as well, is a clearer understanding of life and emotion and how to channel it. How to cope and how to enjoy life as it is dealt to us in whatever way God feels appropriate. Let the emotion funnel through your veins, through your fingertips and out onto the plate in your own cooking...let yourself speak to your guests through your food...be honest...be real...be you, whether happy or sad. Just breathe...