Cooking

Dang, the unfinished draft I wrote was whitewashed after upgrading my MiUi.

Anyways. I was writing about being told by my employer, whose kid I'm babysitting, that she thinks I'm not good at cooking; having not seen what I cook for myself and how I work the kitchen.

I admit, my ego was wounded. Not very much but it was still a bit sore and sour. I mean, my friends and family would say I'm not bad at all. Or not... ?

Well I think I'm a pretty decent cook. An amateur but decent.

What went down was I didn't attempt to correct her, when usually I try to impress people by saying I can do things that I can do. One, coz she's not paying me the market value and not accounting for the time I'm watching over her sleeping kid waiting for her to return home. Two, I am not sure what I can cook for the kid that meets her requirements. Three, I'm not at the level where I could cook and watch the kid at the same time. And seriously, we initially agreed that I'll just be heating up food that she's prepared.

But I was sour about her remarks. And I realised how prideful I am about my cooking skills.

Granted, I'm not familiar with Northeastern Chinese food. And it's not my kitchen. And I'm still lacking in skills and organisation around the kitchen. Sometimes I open the fridge 10 times just to cook a meal. Yeah I can be scatter-brained like that.

But I don't think that I fit the description "我看你做饭不行". Yes, I'm slow and clumsy sometimes. But I can cook. I love to cook. I experiment with new food. I cook with 손맛. I may not get the taste right all the time but they're edible. Heck, it's darned delicious a lot of times to be honest. I can cook to survive but not cook as a living.

If she would've just given me the chance and some pointers. So typical of Chinese mindset where perfection is expected.

But it works out. Coz it's a bit too much to cook on top of picking up the kid from school, feeding, playing with and putting the kid to sleep in 3 hours. Maybe after the kid has warmed up to me enough to be disciplined without resorting to tantrums. Kids really are manipulators. For screen time they'll do anything. I'm slowly uncovering his other interests. Hopefully new ideas will work out. Like paper planes and origami animals for story time.

I learned something about myself through this incident. Like I said, I am prideful of my cooking. And I can actually swallow my pride. Especially when the scales are against me, and of course when it works to my advantage.

Anyways, it's not too difficult to swallow at all. What is pride when it doesn't bring out something positive?

And that I actually can take lots of steps back and not try to impress people with my capabilities (existent or not); which God knows how much I do that.

All said and done, I still think I cook darn well. I don't cook like a chef; nowhere near in fact. They're not disappointing food, that I can be sure. But in this case, I'm not trying to prove that.

And it's all fine.