Food and Fashion – 04.18.2024

I love to cook and watch a lot of shows on the Food Network.

I recently watched one of their premier food competitions “Tournament of Champions”. It was fun to watch. It employs a bracket format, like the NCAA tournament, and an eventual champion. There are constraints on each match, time, food elements, tools, etc.

But that isn’t what struck me.

What struck me was some of the dishes that were created.

There were fried cod collars

There was goat raviolis with a tomato foam.

And a hundred other dishes, the likes of which I will probably never eat.

That got me thinking about the difference between high-end food and the food that the vast majority of people put on their plates every day.

Very few people (proportionally) eat food at the high-end level. I would bet that more people eat at a McDonald’s in one day than at every high-end food establishment in a year.

The same thing is true in fashion. Very few people wear the clothes that runway models wear. Most people buy ‘off the rack’ from big box stores.

The same goes for art, books, music, etc.

It all boils down to what you are trying to create. Something that appeals to an elite few, or something that appeals to the masses.

Quote

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can’t accept your imperfections, that’s their fault.

David M. Burns

Haiku

see the trail winding
amidst trees unto the sea
who decides the path?

Word of the Day

circumlocution | noun | ser-kum-loh-KYOO-shun

Circumlocution refers to the use of many words to say something that could be said more clearly and directly with fewer words. Usually encountered in formal speech and writing, circumlocution can also refer to speech that is intentionally evasive. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/circumlocution]

Planting – 04.15.2024

Everyone knows the aphorism ‘The Best Time To Plant a Tree Was 30 Years Ago, and the Second Best Time To Plant a Tree Is Now’. This is usually attributed as a ‘Chinese Proverb’ but according to Quote Investigator it is more likely to have come from the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1967 as quoted by George W. White, but his source was anonymous.

Regardless of its origins, there is a strong message here. Don’t worry about what you should have done, instead start doing it.

While this is great advice, it is also very hard to do.

‘If I had only’ is a phrase that we as humans utter constantly. IE If I had only…

  • invested in Google 20 years ago.
  • gone to college.
  • started working out.
  • and the list is endless.

This is a trap that is so easy to fall into.

So, when confronted with this thought process, instead think, yes I should have done that then, but what can I do now plant a tree?

Turn missed opportunities of the past into new opportunities for tomorrow.

Haiku

peering to the sea
over rust-stained rails of stone
ponders their decay

Word of the Day

zygology n. The branch of technology concerned with joining and fastening. via OED.