Best to Say Nothing?
Jun. 16th, 2014 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Inlaws arrived safely and stopped by briefly on their way to the hotel to cuddle the Squiddle, who is much bigger than when they cuddled him last.
Unrelated thought that's been nagging at me for a while now. I never know how to respond when people praise my cooking. I'm not one of those gifted individuals who can merrily fling a bit of this, some of that, and a dab of yet something else together and end up with a dish. I cook by mechanics, by tried-and-true recipes. So I really, honestly doesn't feel like my cooking is anything praiseworthy. I'm getting praised for following directions. "Oh, you did that paint-by-numbers so well!" So I never know what to say.
Unrelated thought that's been nagging at me for a while now. I never know how to respond when people praise my cooking. I'm not one of those gifted individuals who can merrily fling a bit of this, some of that, and a dab of yet something else together and end up with a dish. I cook by mechanics, by tried-and-true recipes. So I really, honestly doesn't feel like my cooking is anything praiseworthy. I'm getting praised for following directions. "Oh, you did that paint-by-numbers so well!" So I never know what to say.
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Date: 2014-06-17 06:58 am (UTC)With food, sometimes people just want to express appreciation for the effort put into feeding them something they enjoyed, so you could try thinking of it that way. Another thing to consider is that most cooking directions require you to have an existing knowledge and skill-base of techniques. If you know how to cook, it's a simple matter of following the steps, but if you don't know how to cook, than instructions like "brown and drain the meat", "sift dry ingredients together", "cream sugar and butter", and "julienne carrots" are inexplicable and confusing. Basically, being able to follow and understand those directions is a skill in itself.
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Date: 2014-06-17 01:25 pm (UTC)And there's definitely the appreciating being fed aspect!
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Date: 2014-06-17 01:27 pm (UTC)This is Dragon, not realizing my phone has suddenly decided to not be signed in. Ugh.
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Date: 2014-06-17 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-18 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-19 08:56 am (UTC)