Evolution, Tacos, and Improving Life
Em and I love to cook. We have a few go-to recipes for every occasion. They’re simple, quick, cheap, and hands down the most delicious food we eat. I know, everyone who cooks apparently cooks the best of their favourite dish, I guess you’ll just have to trust that I’m speaking objectively. Our meals are excellent.
We each, separately, make the best meat and non-meat burgers, the best fish tacos, the best pancakes, the best vegetarian lasagne—the list goes on—and I don’t mean to brag, just painting a picture of two people who love food and consistently make the effort to change it up and improve the recipe where we can. More on the ‘improve’ part in a sec.
I love the 80/20 rule. I live by it, in countless aspects of my life and cooking is no exception. Are our meals the best in the world? Of course not. Are they better than most cafes and restaurants nearby? Yeah, they kind of are, which why we baulk at $26 Hoisin Duck Pancakes. If I can spend the same amount of money and a couple joyful hours to feed my wife and myself and still have leftovers, it becomes really hard to justify spending that money on a meal that barely touches the sides. And that’s a good thing, but talking about money and the justifications we make to spend rather than invest it, is a monologue for another blog.
Anyway, back to the 80/20 rule, its 20% effort in the shopping (for quality), 20% in the pre-prep (like making tortilla dough and freezing portions), 20% extra effort organising the groceries in easy-to-access jars and relevant fridge shelves, and finally 20% effort to cook with few choice ingredients that come together to make a meal thats at least 80% of its peak, and still ten times better than the BLAT from that cafe you like.
Our panko-crumbed, butter-fried Snapper tacos, with mango-chilli salsa, and salad on homemade tortilla—takes thirty minutes from start to moaning into the first bite, and here’s the point for the last three-hundred words of gastronomical premise—we have three uniquely delicious recipes for fish tacos alone, because we constantly ask ourselves, “How can this be better?”
It’s a question that used to irk me, and downright triggered my wife for a while. Why does it have to be better? Why can’t you just be happy with what I give you? What is wrong with my cooking?
These questions come from a place of insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, and sometimes, from the mindset of, “I don’t want to put effort into this area of my life.” That last may be a valid excuse—you should choose wisely where you put your energy—but if you find yourself getting defensive when constructive criticism is offered about anything, then it maybe you’re just half-assing life, and need to cultivate some self-respect. I know I didn’t have any, which is why I was always so sensitive about my work, and never applied myself—it’s easier to brush off criticism when you can just say something like, “yeah, well I was just rushing through it, what do you expect?”
So, when I sample anything in life, the first thing I do is appreciate what is there to be appreciated, because if I can’t do that then life get’s pretty grey. But almost immediately after I ask, “how can this be improved”, especially if I’m the one who made the object of my scrutiny. Then usually it’s back to appreciation. I think that’s the key component—if there’s only a dissection of what could be better without an acknowledgment of what is already good, then anything you put your effort into is going to be soured by what could easily be an opportunity to improve, evolve. There must be a balance. There are no bad experiences, only only experiences that lack appreciation—there is collateral beauty even in the worst of times, and if you can’t find it, at the very least you have lived through a learning curve, which is always something to be grateful for.
Of course, I’m using food as an example to illustrate my point, but this evolution mindset applies to almost everything in our lives. Another great example is parenthood and our daughter. The amount of research involved to make informed choices on every aspect of parenthood is staggering. So, manage it in tiny, digestible chunks. Expend a small amount of energy each day improving some aspect of your life, it could be 2-5 minutes looking into EC, or learning about index funds, or making an actionable plan to make this a habit.
Stop allowing your insecurities to stand in the way of your potential. Stop allowing laziness or distraction to hold you in mediocrity. If you haven’t done so already today, take five minutes to work on something that makes you or your life better. You’ll get a kick out of it, I promise.