When I was in Thailand recently I was responsible for
cooking lunch for a group of twenty people each day. It was really
fun but I was feeling challenged working with others, as I've just spent the
last two years working closely with people and now have a strong
urge to do something on my own. Because I'm attached to that idea,
having to cooperate with others was pushing a few of my buttons!
So anyway, one night I lay awake and carefully imagined a beautiful meal
based around hummus. What eventuated was something different; the
girl making the hummus decided it was better kept til dinner and
there was no hummus in the meal at all! Although it seems
insignificant now, it rankled at the time because I was attached to
my idea of how the meal should be. It made me feel grumpy towards her which made us both feel bad.
So the next day I thought
I'd try to do things a bit differently. I decided to have no vision
for the meal at all and to just provide the ingredients, fire and a
clean environment for it to be created in. I chopped and washed
vegetables and when someone asked my opinion about something I tried
to counter with something like, "whatever you feel" or
"just go with your intuition."
In the end the
lunch was one of the yummiest we'd had and I did not cook at all! We
had onion, pumpkin and chickpea stir fry by Jaun, savoury snake beans
and morning glory by Letitia, an enormous salad by Ami covered in a
garlicy sauce whipped up by Lucas. All this was followed by the gooey
chocolatey goodness of Kokko's banana and sticky-rice bliss balls.
OMG!!
The benefits of
letting go of creative control are self-evident!
