Recipes I (still) Haven't Made

Okay. Those of you who want poems...not this time. I have been following a blog--a food blog--this week, ever since the title above showed up on Facebook. I thought it might be interesting to read what recipes have stymied even the semi-pro cooks who blog on food sites: sort of like finding out deep, dark secrets about famous chefs--like Julia Child hated cilantro (so there, all you nay-sayers who don't understand my aversion to the Ivory-soap herb!)

Well, I haven't read anything from anyone famous yet, but there are a lot of folks (fellow-readers) out there who balk at the same things I do. L-O-N-G recipes, for time and labor-intensive dishes (like cassoulet.) Itsy-bitsy quantities of odd ingredients. Things that just SOUND intimidating. Many of the recipes and procedures cited are on my own list: cassoulet (which has always been my Excelsior) among them. Roasting peppers. (I know it's easy, but they come in a jar, for heaven's sake, and nobody has ever shunned my antipasto salad because the peppers weren't roasted in my oven.) Ice cream. Perfect fried chicken.

I generally will try almost anything once--or even twice--and my results have been, shall we say, sometimes less than stellar. But that's the way you learn. I never would have known that I could roll a cake, cook a crepe, manage a souffle, or bake bread if I hadn't tried (and sometimes failed.) It's part of the sport. Imagine RGIII if he never got hit..(Ah, what a thought!) But it's mistakes that are the best  and best-remembered teachers. Not to mention the fact that they make great stories.

The other interesting thing is that many of the items on bloggers' lists include things that I scoff at: Never baked bread!? How absurd! Anybody can bake bread! Or maybe not. We tend to take our own abilities for granted. It's easy to magnify our shortcomings and minimize our talents...and to that I say,  not only "Guilty!" but also, "Stop it!" Do what you can do, and, like Jimmy Carter,  be grateful for it. Try some of the things you don't think you can do, and be grateful for that opportunity. Everybody seems to need to be first and fastest and best at everything. That's impossible. What the world needs right now is a little more gracious failure: more aspiring Indians than overbearing and unqualified chiefs.

So, yes, there is a long list of recipes I've still not made, things I've still not accomplished, places I've not seen, and experiences I've not had. I'll keep plugging along and doing as much as I can fit into this busy life--but, you know, I could be content with applauding people who've done the things I haven't, listening to their exploits, and being grateful for all the gifts that I HAVE been given.