Something new...

I feel so inspired by recipes and creation of recipes that I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me whenever I actually do it, which really is quite often. I sit down with an idea or sometimes a fridge full of something that I have no idea what to do with, and I just start brainstorming. Some of my ideas come from other cooks and chefs or something I've seen on TV, but most often, it comes as all great inventions do, from the mother of necessity: I need to eat.

Oh, yes, I could just eat something simple and plain, but where is the fun in all of that? Taking something simple, plain, even boring and turning it into something delectable or divine is so worth the effort of creating. Isn't that the point? Food tastes good all on it's own; but amazing food is something of a revelation.

I personally think that's why so many of us do what we do to food. We don't simply want to eat an apple. As delicious and succulent and perfect as it already is from falling off the tree, it's just not good enough. (I think there's an analogy here somewhere to how we live our lives.) No, it's not good enough just as is. We want to make it bigger, better, more amazing. Perfection is fantastic, but inspired perfection, that's worth driving hours for. This is why we do it. We want to see how much better we can make something that's already in a state of perfection. I think that's our analogy. Many of us forget our own perfectness - the divine beings that we are. And in doing so, we are always constructing ways to gain back that remembrance of our own perfection - so we create, construct, and build, in hopes that our newer creation will help us regain that perfection.

Here's the irony. Nothing has changed. We're already perfect. Just. As. We. Are. That's right. No added ingredients are necessary. Yeah, we might want to grow our apples in a different lot or try a new variety or something, but the truth is, we are already perfection in the most divine form and we just need to remember that.

But here's the kicker.

We can't just remember it. We need to see it, believe it, be it. We have to feel it in our hearts and in everything we do. It has to become who we are, not our tainted version of what we believe we must be because someone else told us so. No. I will tell you. They were all wrong. Yep. Every last one of them. And you know why? Because as long as you are you, you cannot be anything else than divine. And divine is always perfection.

Have a blessed day! And remember, love who you are and share that love with everyone you meet.


Happy being,
Michelle

Goodreads Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a beautifully written book about two children living in Seattle's International District just as the world is on the brink of war. Told partly through the juvenile eyes of Henry and the adult eyes of the boy who has now become a man, it follows the journey of two children finding one another in the midst of a time in our history full of hatred, prejudice and angst. As Henry and Keiko fall into one another, they eschew all standard societal protocol by going on scholarship to an all-white school, befriending a sax-playing African-American man, and breaking tradition by choosing one another in a time when races did not mix, let alone a Chinese boy and a Japanese girl.



This story is ultimately one of a love, first love that blossoms into a tragic unfolding as World War II rages on and all people of Japanese descent and anyone helping them are thrown into internment camps supposedly for their own safety. It's a microscopic look at what happened in one major city during the internment to the residents, their belongings, and the people left behind. And more than anything, it is a story about the real tragedy of war - the loss of innocence.



Based on real events, real places and a few real people, it is really an amazing story.





Rated PG for theme (war) and a few words befitting of the time.



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