Secretly I’ve always loved to cook as there is something magickal about mixing up ingredients and creating something special. However, my inner domestic goddess was always doing battle with the person I thought I wanted to be as I NEVER wanted to be labeled a housewife and if I fessed up to loving to cook, someone would label me a housewife.
It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve realized that having a job in corporate America and loving to cook are not mutually exclusive. I have a couple of people to thank for that light bulb moment. The person who gets the most credit is one of my fellow manager’s at work. She bakes like no one’s business and her desserts would be worthy of shelf space at any bakery in the world. She’s also a kick butt type of gal who is former military intelligence. No one would ever mistake her for a housewife. After chowing down on a few of her incredibly delectable treats, I realized that maybe it really is okay to cook in the kitchen and in the boardroom.
Since John has his heart attack, we’ve gotten serious about what we eat and it was mind blowing to read the labels on prepared food and see exactly how much sodium they contain. I realized that if we wanted to eat well and not feel deprived, we’d have to get serious about cooking our own food most nights. I invested in a Heart Healthy Cook Book and between that and the Internet, we’ve been eating healthy and eating well.
I’m also rediscovering my love of cooking and realizing that being in the kitchen surrounded by the wonderful smells of food makes me incredibly happy. I used to dread coming home from work and having to figure out what to fix for dinner because it was just one more chore on my checklist. However, I’ve recently reclaimed that time as my buffer between work and home and now I come home, put my apron on, put on my cooking shoes, turn on some Motown and fix up some wonderfully flavorful (and mostly heart healthy food). While the food is cooking, I do a load of dishes or tidy up and by the time dinner is ready, I’m out of the work zone and into the home zone.
Rediscovering my inner domestic goddess is giving me a deeply satisfying kind of bliss that comes from accepting and acknowledging my whole self and not just the workaday self who heads off to the office to play hardball with the guys.
Cairn by Cairn 