Yesterday was another cooking day and another friend's day.
I invited a friend over who works with Temple Spa (aromatherapy products) to come over and give us a demonstration of the products. It was a lovely evening. The demonstration went on for 2 hours and we had the chance to experiment all those lovely aromatherapy spa products. After that, I served everyone Jamie's Mushroom soup with mushroom toasts, my 7th recipe of the week.
Aromatherapy is something I strongly believe in but it can unleash lots of emotional feelings and have side effects on the following day, the result was: I woke up with a very big stinky headache.
I have the impression I am anesthetised because of things that have recently happened in my life. I feel I just keep breathing but am not living. I don't know where to go, what to do and to be honest, I am tired of doing what people expect me to do or want me to do.
It is quite frequently that people want to decide what you should do and judge you for what you do and what you don't do. There are no formulas in life and nobody has the right to judge you or your actions because nobody is inside you to feel you feelings, to share your pains, sorrows and fears. Nobody has lived your life and knows what goes on in your past, your history and inside your mind and your heart. Nobody has felt what you have felt or experienced or saw what you have seen. It is so much easier for people to assume and criticise than to listen and support. There are actually very few people that have time to listen and to be empathetic. Most friends, when you most need them, to free their consciousness and feel good about themselves, tell you to go and get some help. Come back when you are sorted out, I have no time for this. Very lonely world.
These moments when you feel you would most need a friend, you can't find any. I can easily understand why so many people choose to commit suicide, they feel that weighty loneliness upon their shoulders and that feeling of helplessness and lack of choice. I do not believe in suicide because life is a cycle. Nobody is always at the top, everyone goes through moments of doubt and anguish, fears, loneliness and I have learnt in life, those moments come and go, we just have to bear with the lows to come back to the highs and highs wouldn't be highs without the lows. Hills are only there because there are depressions. Otherwise it would be all flat and boring.
These moments of darkness are often the moments when you need to reconnect with your own deepest feelings, like going back to the womb and reconnecting with your essence. Throughout life we are always playing roles: children, parents, spouses, professional roles, we can be labled under many names and titles, my sister, my friend, my mother, my cousin, a singer, a teacher, whatever it is you are doing and every person that gets in touch with you only sees a facet on a multifaceted human being you are. The whole picture only belongs to you (and maybe God), and the person you are belongs to your soul and your spirit and what lies beneath all of that.
I think those moments of introspection are a desperate attempt to find that essence that sometimes ends up getting lost amongst all those tiles and roles we play in life. Who am I? Deep down? What is my purpose in this fleeting moment in this world we call a lifetime? What should I be doing or not be doing? Are the ways of the world the right ways for me and why can't I be like everybody else and think life everybody else? I am a free spirited and free thinking person. I have my own opinions and I do not need approval from anybody and do not need to prove anything to anyone but myself. I am constantly searching and rarely finding but for me the search is more important than the find and the questioning is more important than the answers. It really annoys me that everyone seems to have the right answer for everything, as if we lived in this agreeing world based on pearls of wisdom spread via internet. Everybody agrees on everything that they don't even know where these things come from.
Prefiro ser essa metamorfose ambulante do que ter aquela velha opiniao formada sobre tudo. These are lyrics from a song that says: I'd rather be that constant metamorphosis than to have that set opinion about everything.
Mushroom soups can really heighten your state of consciousness. Were there magic mushrooms perhaps?
Coming back to food, all those rich delicious smells and tastes that food brings also give you that feeling that you are alive, to experience the best the world can offer.
I truly admire Jamie Oliver, his passion for life and for food and his creativity and bravery about ingredients are truly outstanding. Not everyone can appreciate it as some people take to food as they take to life. They are not ready to be adventurous and experience what they don't already know. Some people will spend a lifetime eating the same old food with no seasoning, because they are afraid of trying and tasting life. Going through this cookbook has made me embrace another way of experiencing cooking, that richness that the UK has byincorporating other cultures. Throughout history Britain has been a mixture of everything, Britons, romans, Celts, Anglo Saxons, Vikings, and more recently Pakistanis, Indians, asians... What a rich culture!
It makes me laugh all that effort to be 'multicultural' as Britain hasn't been anything but multicultural ever since it existed! There isn't such a thing as a pure breed and thank goodness for that!
I myself am part Portuguese, part Lebanese, part French and God knows what else. We are all part of everything, we are part of the human race and that is enough. Only some people think that differences makes us different but in fact it makes us all the same: humans, and blood in our veins keeps being red, and we all bleed inside and out the same.
I am too philosophical today but I can't help it. I think, therefore I exist. I exist, therefore I eat.
And tonight we will have chicken and vegetables vindaloo. Exciting spicy influences all over again.
Coming back to that mushroom soup, I thought it was a brilliant idea to mix soured cream and lemon, it cut through the 'yukiness' mushrooms can have. I also love the idea of the toasts with mushrooms to go with it, it gives a bit of texture and links it with the soup. Brilliant, again, bloody brilliant.
I bow and take my hat to Jamie. So far, great success, great connection with people, not a crumb left of anything. My husband, who was there every evening is loving it all but his favourite dish so far has been the Glasgow potato scones. To be perfectly honest mine too and this was the recipe that has hit me the most when I watched the tv series, the one that got me all started in this blog.
Thanks for following me. I do not publish the recipes here without Jamie Oliver's consent because I think you should buy the book and start a fantastic adventure in the world of British cooking.
See you soon,
Gisele
RECIPE 7
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