I’ve been in a slump.
If you tuned in a few newsletters ago, you may remember I was catching y’all up to speed on alllllll of the events I had been hired for, how busy I was, and actually how I should’ve been careful for what I wished for because it was maybe too much work.
Welp, joke was on me once again. Since writing that newsletter, I was surprised to not book another private cheffing event. Here I was expecting a fully booked November and December - so much so that I would have to turn events down in order to keep a work life balance, and the irony is that there was no work only my life to balance. Lol.
It definitely got me in my feels……
What happened ???
I couldn’t help but do the human thing … a go down a full on shame spiral. That’s right, no insecurity stone was the left unturned. My inner mean girl was was snickering and saying, “it was just a fluke you don’t really know how to cook anyway” and “you’re not very creative or original” and “that other girl on tiktok is doing it waaaay better.” I imagine the universe laughing its head off, probably Julia Child and God too.
Have you ever been down one of the spirals? It sounds crazy as I write it out but if you ever have experience something like this, you know how easy it is to say the most horrendous things that you would probably never say to someone else but to yourself.
The woo-woo girl part of me tried to step in against mean girl. She was like, “babe - you gotta trust yourself! trust the universe! abundance is coming! it must be mercury retrograde or something! ” Nice try, woo-woo girl, but honestly, mean girl is so much more compelling.
Given that this is not my first interaction with mean girl - I grabbed my emotional tool kit .
My emotional tool kit has everything in there that gets me out of a slump, makes you happy and honestly gives you hope again. Mine includes long phone calls with my girlfriends, shaking my ass around my apartment, journaling, cracking jokes with my man, moving my body, and cooking new and inventive food.
As I started to cross off these activities, I realized arguably the most important one that I wasn’t attending to - cooking new and inventive food.
I realized that ever since I started to get paid for cooking, I’ve found myself slip into this pattern where I wait to get paid in order to play around with food. So, when I’m not getting paid, I’m not playing around with food. I go back to cooking my standard classics that get the job done …..but there’s no more element of play. And this is dangerous.
And it leaves me feeling…meh…..in a slump and uncreative.
I thought back to how I first started really cooking. I knew I loved it, and I was so hungry to learn more. It was 2020 and resources were limited - so I gave myself a goal of trying a new recipe every week in writing about it here on the Sobremesa. And Lord was this a challenge at times! But I loved the challenge. It was exhilarating inspiring and really gave me the building blocks to be the creative cook that I am today.
See, back in this time. I actually never considered myself a creative person at all. I always thought that a creative person was someone who made art or music I didn’t actually associate it with food. So when I started writing Sobremesa and cooking, it was really the first time that I felt creative, and like an artist in my own right. My vessel just wasn’t a paintbrush or a guitar - it was food.
Flash forward to now.
I picked up Rick Rubin’s, A Creative Life, and it’s like he knew exactly what I was feeling, and was speaking directly at me. If you haven’t read or listen to this book yet, I highly recommend it.
He says,
All art is a work in progress….if you start from the position there is no right or wrong no good or bad and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things…We’re not playing to win we are playing to play and ultimately playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun.
He also gave this advice,
Another approach to overcoming insecurities is to label them….the buddhist concept of papancha, “preponderance of thoughts,” this speaks of the minds tendency to respond to our experiences with an avalanche of mental chatter.” Now that there is a name for what is holding you back you are able to normalize the doubts and not take them so seriously. When they come up, call them “papancha” - notice them and then move forward.
Now I see that this is just the natural path of an artist. The ups and downs. The self-doubts are actually always going to be with me. And so it’s up to me and just me to be able to recognize it, name it (papancha) and honestly embrace it.
And, as Rick reminded me, we need to go back to basics to just remember how to play again.
And my basics - my play - started right here on this newsletter platform.
So I am devoting myself back to playing around with food and continuing to write about it. Like the OG Sobremesa days. It will look like sharing new recipes, and of course, sharing my thoughts, feelings, jokes, and unsolicited advice along the way.
And not just that.
I’m also so excited to get creative with my YESBABE partner, Vero. We’re going to get together in the kitchen weekly with the sole reason to learn, experiment, and play with food together. It feels so good to cook with a friend and that’s how YESBABE started - us cooking and jiving about food and just going “YES BABE!” every time one of us had an interesting idea of how to pair flavors or a new technique to use.
When we start our weekly cooking sessions (tomorrow actually!) our focus will be to celebrate global heritage recipes - all sourced from ordinary, but extraordinary humans from all over the world.
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….and this is where you come in if there are any ideas you have recipes, you’d like me to cover topics you’d like me to discuss. I am all ears.
Back to the kitchen ✌🏼 TTYL
xo
Tessa
Congratulations on getting back to your essence, playing with food !!! Not easy to shake the blahs and humfs, but one step in front of the other, one recipe at a time should help and make that feeling go away. Yes, it happens to us all so thank you for reminding us to always look forward and not stay in the blahs...
On that note...what does your Christmas dinner looks like?? Any lechon, pasteles, hayacas, arroz con gandules in your plans?? Maybe a mix of your ancestral tables?? Whatever it is, share it....make it Merry and Colorful.
Wishing you and your tribe a very Merry Christmas and a Happier New Year. I trust that your future will be bright and successful...Enjoy it