made by a ten year old, plated and cut with a "grown up" knife by me
You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone.
We’ve had temps no higher than 80 degress all summer here in la. Now its 104.
Shoot me.
I realized how the weather is something thats so humbling. With all the technology these days and our power to control cars, phone, computers, medicine, we still have not found a way to control mother nature. As it should be.
Chefs have serious control issues. Many have underlying OCD. My eating and exercise disorder was based on control. Lets look at the things not at my control:
My mom’s death
My family’s financial situation
My genes
My diseases I’ve gotten over the years
No wonder I turned to food and exercise to get some sort of sense of control. Not that being in control is a bad things. Its great and helpful in many respects. It promotes independence. Doctors BETTER be in control! I expect teachers to be in control of their students (lord know I suck at that!).
But we can’t be too in control. It gets dangerous. Its like driving with the hand breaks up. We need to learn how to surrender a little bit and let things be out of our control. I hate to say this with the heat I’m experiencing right now, but we need to “cool” it.
My dad I think always had a good grasp of control over me. He mostly let me do what I wanted, and let me suffer the consequences. Granted, I was never a rebel or got into serious trouble. Maybe because he wasn’t so controlling, at least physically. But I’m sure it killed him as he saw me wither away when I was very sick. I’m sure it killed him that his daughter was suffering, and it was out of his control.
This partly why I am ambivalent about having children. I am a control freak and although I’m way better now, I’m scarred my daughter will do what I did. I’m afraid she’ll kill herself slowly like I did, and that I won’t be able to stop it. Perhaps not having a child is my way of stopping it.
But I don’t know about the future. I may have children, and maybe by that time, I’ll let go of that fear, and I’ll let go of more those control issues I have.
I must say I do think I’ve lost some control since my sickest that I’m very proud of. I used to be a nazi of sorts with my food. Eating at specific times only, only specific things, never more or less than planned.
Now, I’m a lot more go with the flow….or go with the appetite. It scares me a little too, because sometimes I feel like my stomach is a bottomless pit. But it helps to make single serving recipes (like most of the ones I feature on this blog) and it helps to avoid costco
When do you feel like you are too in control? Where would you like to be able to loose a little? Maybe you lack control, where would like to be more in control.
Today in my kiddie desserts class, we made “dessert” quesdillas! Heres what we used
-large flour tortilla
-half a banana (or more if you really like bananas!)
-half a peach
-handful of mini marshmallows
-cinnimon
-a tbs or so of peanut butter
this time, I took a picture of the kids from the face down, to protect their identites
Fill the tortilla with the sliced bananas, peaches, peanut butter, cinnamon, and marshmallows. Fold in half like a quesadilla and cook on a skillet until the marshmallows melted. Salsa not recommended.
ALSO…….
A special opportunity for anyone in Los Angeles October 2 and 3rd and is somewhat new to yoga! Come to my teacher training course as we learn to teach beginners! You’ll get to be taught by moi for free and Yoga Work will hook you up with two free classes for your participation! email me if you can come!
Eden's Eats 
I have control issues, too. My current problems are with my research (in my department, it is completely out of my control), money (I would rather not spend any), and schedules (I am way too scheduled). I am just very responsible and if I can do something myself, I will. I have always been this way, and wouldn’t even let my mom teach me how to write my name! I would try to do it by myself, first.
Those dessert quesadillas look awesome. I want your job.
It can be really scary to start letting go of some of the things we control, but after a while it can be really liberating. It’s nice to not have to plan everything ahead. It’s nice to not freak out if I ate an extra slice of pizza accidentally because I was really hungry. It’s hard to accept that there are so many things that I have no control over! But I have to. When I start trying to control crap I just shut down and can only focus on a few select things. Which is pretty miserable. Silly that we try to make up for not being able to control the big things by meticulously planning the minutiae of life like food.
I totally agree, how sad that food is our avenue for controlling food sometimes
Whenever I think of all of the things that are out of my hands, I break out in a sweat. Saturday night I was up at 2 freaking out over all of these things that I most certainly couldn’t conquer at 2am. Sometimes all we can do is breathe and hope out for the best! I’m pretty sure dessert quesadillas would help calm the nerves though…
I never put sweet things in wraps… always on toast or bread. I don’t know why, but I always think that wrapping it up will take away from the delicious filling. I’m a little nuts 😛
I feel like I am still too much in control, I think. I mean, my eating is better than it’s ever been but I still find it very difficult to go against the voice in my head and step outside the box. I agree that it’s about letting go… finding that place where you have a little bit of control but you let everything fall into place too.
❤ Tat
I heard about the heat wave in L.A. and sympathize, as we had our own weeks of crazy heat here this weekend. Now it’s 60 and I have my space heater on at work to counteract the blasting air conditioning, so go figure. Just think of it as Bikram yoga or something.
Anyway, you know my control issues and that I understand where you’re coming from. It can be hard to accept that we are forced to just go with things so often, but I don’t think it’s silly or uncommon for us to grasp at anything we can for security–be it food, exercise, routine, etc. We want just that–a sense of security–but we have to learn how to do it in a healthier way.
As much as it is about control to an extent, I also think it’s about trusting ourselves, others and that things will work out as they should.
I’m a total control freak so I hear ya. A huge reason I don’t have children I’ll admit. You’re still young though!! You never know what will happen down the road. It’s kind of funny that you guys are having the heat we’ve had all summer and it’s downright chilly here 😉
I used to make “dessert tacos” all the time! They’re yummy 😀
“This partly why I am ambivalent about having children. I am a control freak and although I’m way better now, I’m scarred my daughter will do what I did. I’m afraid she’ll kill herself slowly like I did, and that I won’t be able to stop it. Perhaps not having a child is my way of stopping it.”
^^ Did you read my mind? I was thinking of the same thing the other day..how I’d feel better never having a child, ever, and having them grow up in the world today, and potentially go through the same horrible things…it’s like preventing a catastrophe before it happens…I dunno.
I don’t know why I assumed even if I would have children, I’d have a daughter…I might actually do better with boys.
I’ve never tried to control my eating but I do try to control my schedule, other people at times (how frustrating when they don’t behave as you expected to behave!) and all in all.. I’m a bit of a control freak. I disguise it by saying I’m an management assistant and I love to be organised, I have fooled a few people with that 😀
Hi There, I am putting together an LA HLB bloggies meet-up for a 1:00 p.m. lunch on Saturday, October 23.
If you are interested in joining us please email me at yellowbrickbeauty@gmail.com and let me know.
Thanks!