{"id":146,"date":"2008-10-19T14:22:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-19T14:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/?p=146"},"modified":"2008-10-19T14:22:15","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T14:22:15","slug":"cooking-fear-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/cooking-fear-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking Fear? Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em>Yesterday\u2019s post<\/a> raised the topic of cooking fears and whether Olympic-inspired perfectionism, complexity and audience intolerance were at least partly at fault. <\/span>Let me connect some dots to make sense of that claim. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s good evidence that the food world is spiraling into the stratosphere of perfectionism and complexity: <\/span>Consider the sheer amount of cooking information we\u2019re exposed to: <\/span>dozens of food shows and entire food networks, hundreds of internet sites devoted to cooking and recipes, food sections in practically every newspapers and scores of magazines, cooking videos all over YouTube, live cooking classes available in dozens of venues, huge cooking stores and cooking catalogues, and of course, thousands upon thousands of cookbooks. <\/span><\/p>\n

Each week, in cooking shows and classes, chefs (me included!) excitedly share hundreds of new recipes, all manner of exotic new foods, unique spice combinations, ever-better knives and pans and the latest must-have gadgets. <\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we\u2019re all exposed regularly to professionally prepared restaurant foods and to pictures of perfectly styled foods on TV and the internet, in magazines and newspapers and all over food packaging.<\/p>\n

Not that all this is all bad! <\/span>On the one hand, it has fueled a wonderful interest in food and cooking and has undoubtedly eased a lot of cooking fears. <\/span>After all, if we suffer from a lack of fundamental cooking skills, there\u2019s no better remedy than attending a cooking class. <\/span>Seeing fish properly prepared goes a long way towards easing the fear of cooking fish. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, courtesy of the law of tradeoffs, everything\u2014even good things\u2014come with both helpful and not-so-helpful consequences. <\/span>In this case, there has been almost too much of a good thing. <\/span>There has come to be so much cooking stuff, that is so perfect and fairly complex, that it\u2019s easy to get overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations–and fear of not living up to those expectations. <\/span>Think about it:<\/p>\n