"Hey baby, do you like fine cooking? Cause you know what? I got Swanson's Dinner in the freezer with your name on it.”—Jimmy Fallon



Crafting Tip:  Pets should always preside over your work.



I love when someone I love finds their crafty bone!  My sweet friend Becca found hers this past weekend.  You see she is the cook of our friendship.  She takes cooking classes. She writes a cooking blog.  And, well, she cooks delectable edibles.  And being one of those people who take great pleasure in telling everyone the awesome things their friends do, Becca is also one of my most favorite people to brag about.  Personally, I’m not a cook.  It isn’t that I don’t like to cook.  It just seems like such a chore.  It’s fun when I have the time, but on nights when I don’t get home from work until 8:30 pm…cooking just seems like an obstacle between me and rest.      

Oh, and I’m not that good at it.  One of my main cooking problems is I get distracted and skip a step…or two.  Plus, I try completely ridiculous recipes.  I can never seem to find exactly what it calls for, so I make poor replacement choices or end up at three different grocery stores buying ingredients I’ve never heard of.  Lastly, I tend to over think which leads to over slicing, over mixing and general over cooking.

Becca, on the other hand, is quite the intuitive cook.  Yet at the same time, she really thinks about the food she is working with and the meal she is creating.  She carefully plans.  Heck, she organizes her shopping list by grocery store sections.  She likes the line by line instructions.  She likes the structured process.  Which is EXACTLY why she doesn’t like crafting—and I do.  Craft instructions are simply guidelines.  Skip a step?  No worries!  Just add more glue…or glitter!  Started making a birdhouse and ended up with a dozen pot holders?  Awesome!  Crafting is as all over the place just as I am while cooking is down the line like Becca.  And what is really cool is that at their cores crafting and cooking are the same:  Why buy what you can make?!

Anyway, so this is why I’m so proud Becca made this:



Adorable, right?!

As for me and cooking, I think it will come in due time.  It will be just like me and French!  I took four semesters of French in college and walked away barely able to speak a word of it.  Then, four years later, I went to France and somehow through the jetlag I could speak French!  It was like I was Angelina Jolie in some kind of spy movie.  I half expected to remember I also knew kung fu!  My husband was absolutely amazed.  He kept asking me to translate signs, menus and conversations.  I think if I had to cook—if all the takeout food in the world disappeared—I could cook.  But until then I’ll let my nifty friend Becca handle it.