Big Spoon, Little Spoon

I have a confession to make. I’m in a blog writing slump.

I’m 8 posts, 1 page, 10 comments, and 2 months along in this journey of finding grace within my everyday life and I’ve become stuck. Each week it takes me a little bit longer to decide on something to write about, and it takes even longer to get myself to sit down and actually start forming sentences. Sunday’s have been good writing days for me because I’ve had Saturday to decompress, but even after spending a lovely day at the park with lovely people I only feel 1/2 as inspired as I would like. I mean, part of that could be that I just finished watching Mad Max: The Fury Road and this is one of the world’s least inspiring movies. Sure – it’s dramatic and a little heart wrenching at times, but c’mon… how does someone make an entire 2 hour movie about people chasing each other around a desert? I should have known I would hate it. I’m a hopeless romantic with a love for all things Wes Anderson, and one of my favorites movies is Pride and Prejudice. So there’s that.

I digress.

Last night I made risotto. A creamy goat cheese risotto that should have come with a warning – “this dish should not be taken lightly”. Just an FYI, under no circumstances should you make this for the very first time right as 14 people are arriving at your apartment. As I learned yesterday evening, you need to constantly stir the rice as it cooks, otherwise it will stick to the pan and burn.

Picture this – I’m half ready, frantically stirring two pans of our only dinner as my friends begin to arrive. I’m going to screw up my first dinner party all because I want to try making something new and exciting. My thought is that what would be a better dish for wine night than a main course cooked in wine? Luckily, they brought their excellent spoon handling skills to help me out. Also, one of my friends happened to go to culinary school so she should probably take all of the credit for last night’s success. Which, in my opinion, it turned out to be. We drank wine, laughed, and then laughed some more.

In a way, I think my life is sometimes a little bit like making last night’s risotto. I’ve chopped and diced the ingredients I think I need for the final product and I’ve started to cook the rice. I’m incrementally adding wine or broth while also constantly stirring. I’ve jumped all in, past the point of no return and right now I must have paused the stirring because I’m getting stuck to the pan; I’m feeling uninspired and faithless in the face of uncertainty. Thankfully, my friends are arriving and they have come with constant words of encouragement and support to keep my spoon in motion. They haven’t cooked this kind of risotto either, but they are willing to help so that I don’t get burned.

It’s still unclear if this main dish will come out as a success but I’m crossing my fingers for the best, and with that I raise my glass to risotto and uncovering the grace in the least likely of places.