Cooking Fears

I stared at the giant green globes piled high on the folding table of the farmer's market, surrounded by less intimidating bunches of beets, peppers, and pumpkins. They were so large they could have easily fed a family of eight. Their flimsy, early spring green leaves belied the fact that it was the farmer's market's final autumn weekend - my last chance. After this, a winter full of grocery store, shipped-from-mexico produce awaits me.

"Come on." They whispered. "You know you wanna try it."

I still swear those cabbages were laughing at me.

An often revisted conversation between me and another foodie friend involves our greatest "cooking fears". Things that we've never done, things that sounds too big or too complicated or have too many steps. Sometimes these fears are completely.... well, I'd like to say random and baseless, but then I'd probably be referring to fears that aren't my own. :) My friend - who is, by the way, an excellent cook herself - is afraid to try her hand at mashed potatoes. Another pal hates touching raw meat of any kind. My own personal fears revolve a lot around baking - anything involving live yeast terrifies me. Also, any recipe that is long, drawn out, and has a lot of rare and expensive ingredients. I am a Midwestern girl at heart, and the idea of spending a lot of time and dollars on a failed, inedible project stops me cold before I even enter the kitchen.

Oddly, when it comes to actually eating, there is precious little that scares me. Raw fish or meat never even give me pause. Brains, intenstines, offal? I figure it's the perfect solution to using the entire animal, and I feel proud of myself for following the "snout to tail" dogma. Weird plants or bugs? I'll try anything once. I am a couragous eater. While travelling, I have been known to randomly pick something off a menu without even speaking the language. Talk about the ultimate surprise. :) I will also select the most random thing off menus, or pick a dish based entirely on a strange ingredient, for the simple reason of "Well? When else am I gonna get a chance to try that?"

So today, after my bout with the cabbages, I'm left wondering why that courageness abandones me in my own kitchen. Metaphor for life? Very possibly!

What does this all have to do with cabbages, exactly? Cabbages aren't scary in the slightest. Poor, innocent, maligned cabbages. I'll tell you in one word.

Sauerkraut.

The word itself sends shivers down my spine.

I love sauerkraut. Nothing say easy fall dinner better than a big plate of beautiful white slivers of fermented cabbage along side a roast porkloin, pork chops, or smoked sausage and apples...Mmmm...... I especially love homemade sauerkraut. As long as it's not my own. So in the world of "knowing exactly where your food comes from", this is a very ironic example of literally wanting to be in the dark.

I've talked about facing my fear for a good two years now. People tell me how easy it is to make. I've read articles, done online searches. Honestly, these things just serve to increase my activation barrier. (I have to sterilize a jar? How the heck do I do that? I mean, I work in an OR, but I think they'd notice if I slipped a mason jar into the autoclave.... And during the fermenting process the jar could possibly explode??!!! Seriously? Like a bomb? I have gruesome images in my head of my husband coming home to a zombie covered with shards of glass and cabbage....)

Seriously, doesn't anyone have an old German grandmother I can borrow for an afternoon? I really don't want to embarrass myself with an obituary that reads "died from an unfortunate self-inflicted sauerkraut poisoning".

I did buy that laughing head of cabbage. I will face this fear.

Who will be laughing at end? We shall see.