Will B. Perfecting A Recipe

You may remember I have previously written about my love for cooking and the special tie it has with my Mom. One of my favorite dishes she made very well was Chicken and Dumplings. I refer to them as chicky dumplens.

I have worked on recreating her recipe for many years to try to perfect it as I remember it. I finally did it this past week. It was spot on just as she would have made them. The main issue I always ran into was getting the dumplings right. It took learning something new for me to finally learn how to make her dumplings. I have been learning to cook Asian cuisine for the past couple of months. My latest recipe to learn was something my wife and I simply love. Asian inspired Steamed Dumplings. We made these from scratch, including the dough or wrappers as they are called, the filling and the sauce. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but they came out great with the exception of the wrapper being a tad too thick. A problem I will correct next time we make them.

As it turned out, the dough we made for the steamed dumplings was the perfect texture and flavor of the dumplings I loved so much in my Mom’s Chicky Dumplens. So, I set out to finally, after many years to make my Mom’s recipe. It turned out spectacular, so I am told. I thought they were quite delicious myself. All it took was taking the risk of learning something new.

Sometimes in life this same lesson needs to be learned. I have always been very rigid for learning new things. It comes slow to me but once I take the step, I go all in. I have the personality that likes everything in it’s place and a place for everything. When I first met my wife, I was a neat freak and hated clutter. She broke me of that bad habit somewhat and I broke her of her habit somewhat as well. We now live in a comfortable medium of the two.

Back to the point. Trying new things is a good thing. I, for one, get set in my ways and forget how exciting it is to try or learn something new. I tried photography as a serious hobby some 20 odd years ago when my wife bought me a really nice camera I was eyeing, and after many years as a hobby I turned my passion into a job. Had I not taken the steps to try something new, I would never have a job that is not like work but more as fun. They say if you do what you love for a living you will never work a day in your life.

The same thing happened when I decided to learn to cook Asian cuisine. I was worried I would fail or might not be good at it. But when I took that leap into the unknown it turned out I was not only good at it but discovered the way to finally perfect my Mom’s recipe I had been trying desperately to do for so many years. This is Will B. saying, “get out of your comfort zone and dare to try something new!”