Quarantine Diaries- the lessons of being at home
Over the past several weeks, I have learned a lot about myself and the world as a whole.
I would first like to make clear that I am not a great cook or baker. I don’t know why, but I have never been a big fan of cooking and spending time in the kitchen. Of course, knowing the basics is essential, but because I have been stuck at home, with nothing too exciting to do, I decided to put my skills to the test.
Here is what I learned.
Lesson 1: Baking with gluten-free flour is much harder than it may appear.
I am not fully gluten-free, but when I can, I try my best to eat mainly gluten-free products. Now, I’m not skilled or equipped for difficult recipes, but a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a leap out of my comfort zone and bake gluten-free chocolate chip cookies from scratch.
I was extremely nervous to have anyone try them because one I don’t bake often, and two because using gluten-free flour has a different consistency than regular flour.
The first batch came out better than I expected. What I learned from this batch is that I needed to add more butter to make them softer. I think this batch beat mine and my family’s expectations.
However, a couple of weeks later, I attempted to make another batch. Let’s just say they were inedible.
I realized that I accidentally used white rice flour instead of the mixed gluten-free flour that I was supposed to use. So, that batch was horrible, and I am not at all exaggerating, although I wish I was.
To quote my mom, “I’ve never tasted anything like that. It was horrible.”
At first, my mom tried to spare my feelings but then realized that she couldn’t because of how awful they were. I kid you not this taste took forever to get rid of. I can’t even describe how disgusting they were.
I fell to the floor crying, and laughing at my disgusting mistake. Part of me was upset because I was looking forward to eating my cookies. The other part of me couldn’t stop laughing because of how funny it was. It was one of those bittersweet moments in life that to an outsider, may sound strange, but to me, this was a failure that allowed me to learn, and I’ll touch on failure a little later in this article.
My mom wanted to see my dad’s thoughts on the cookies, so we all watched him eat it, and his facial expression was of pure disgust as he ran to the bathroom to spit it out.
I was disappointed that this batch was inedible, but my mom reminded me it’s all part of the learning experience.
Being persistent and resilient, I decided to make another batch.
The second batch of the day was at least edible; however, they still weren’t as good as the first batch I made several weeks prior.
This batch was very bland and a little too soft. I realized that I didn’t use enough sugar, which made them too bland, plus sugar also helps absorb some moisture, so that would have made a rather large difference both in taste and texture.
My dad still ate my cookies. He said, “they are okay, and I’ll eat them.”
As the week has gone on, my dad ate a good portion of the cookies.
Although my cookies last weekend didn’t come out as good as I had hoped, I learned from my failure, which will then lead me to success in my future cooking/baking career.
Being in quarantine has taken some getting used to, but I’m using this time to grow, fail, and learn, so I can use my skills when the world is ready for me to show them off.
The biggest takeaway from all of this is that persistence and determination are key to finding success. In a way, my cookies were a metaphor for failure, and we can’t succeed unless we learn to fail along the way.
In our society, failure is seen as a negative idea or consequence of not being able to do something; when in reality, failure is one step in being able to reach success. Without failure, we can’t learn from our mistakes, and we won't learn how to laugh at them and how to laugh at ourselves.
I could go on a tangent about this because when I was younger, I believed that my failures made me weak when the truth is when you overcome your failures, you show your strength. Making terrible tasting cookies reminded me to laugh, learn, and overcome my failures.
I’m proud of myself and how far I have come on my personal growth journey with accepting failure. My 16-year-old self would have been extremely devastated by making a terrible batch of gluten-free cookies, and I definitely wouldn’t have attempted to make another batch 20 minutes later.
I believe that these small lessons end up being big reminders that we can overcome our failures. It’s important to reflect on our growth and to say we’re proud of ourselves for growing because sometimes the best compliments come from ourselves.
There will be more lessons to come, so stay tuned!
I hope you all are staying safe, healthy, and happy.
Forever Always,
Emily
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