Hi there,
Well, well… it’s been a while (again). And on a Tuesday? Perhaps Substack is broken.
Not at all, it’s still me and I’m still alive (although this cold has killed my spirit1 over the past week 🤒). A mixture of factors got in the way of my weekly tea-and-scribe, but ultimately it brought existential questions: what’s the point of the blog? Why do we need to be consistent? Does anyone even read this? (clearly, you do - thanks for getting this far) What’s the point?
As the summer winds to an end, physically and psychologically, it’s a time to evaluate what stays and what leaves. Guess we’ll see whether the blog stays.
For now, beyond my cold, it’s been a strange week of days getting full without feeling productive. Perhaps a big comedown from our family holiday away on the East Coast, enjoying the heights of New York and the falls of Niagara, beautiful.
Highlight of the week: a day out at Edgbaston Stadium. Great to get to some live cricket, although the quality on show was disappointing. Met some mutual friends too, nice lads, and enjoyed a chilly but convivial evening out (and brought out my inner child 😁)
Turns out hosting dinner for someone who you admire and know is a good chef is stressful.
Thank God I’m not a full-time chef whose livelihood is as tied to a critic’s opinion as, well, fish and chips.
I attempted three quite ambitious meals - sweet potato steaks, spinach and fish filo pie and a coconut mango yoghurt cake. Yes, I know, fancier than the food you were served on your business class ticket home.
The cooking took the morning and afternoon, peeling the potatoes, pre-cooking then poking then roasting, whilst marinating the fish, blanching spinach, layering the filo (pastry) - it was an adventure.
One I’m glad I went on because the result was fantastic: brilliant tastes and luckily they didn’t clash with each other - it’s not like the world needs another conflict.2
However, as you’re probably expecting with this grand story arc, mistakes were made.
3 new dishes - yes, I know it sounds obvious, to not cook a completely new menu. It meant I used far more thinking power and recipe scrolling than I needed to.
3 dishes which all needed the oven - another rookie error, one ChatGPT would have definitely picked up.3 Thank God for the air fryer, which saved my steaks. It did mean we had a delayed dessert: worth the wait, but not ideal.
A burnt top of the pie - this is down to me unfortunately. I hadn’t left enough time to make the pie so cranked up the heat. 10 minutes pass, as I smoothen the sweet potato sauce and mess with the air fryer.
“Anna, what’s that burning smell?”
I hurry to the oven to find a charred top pastry, doesn’t help that filo is a delicate pastry that needs gentle care, like holding a newborn - you wouldn’t blast it with heavy metal. Thankfully, we caught it in time to avoid Armageddon but it wasn’t optimal.
This curious cooking affair reinforces the value of “experience”.
I’m not a pro chef. I haven’t made a 3 course meal on my own before. I haven’t had just one oven to make 3 courses before. I haven’t used filo pastry before.
If you step back and have a think, I had no business making this lunch work.
Yet I did - that’s something to be proud and take some confidence from. But more importantly, it was only by being so audacious that I realised some crucial lessons: “don’t rush baking, it takes its time”, “don’t plan 3 oven-based recipes (when you’ve got 5 stoves)” and “make sure you actually ripen the mango before planning to use a ‘ripe mango’”.
I don’t see anyway in which I could’ve foreseen myself running into the problems I had. You could argue, as a sportsperson might, that you can visualise yourself going through the motions of pre-heating and heating the oven, but I don’t think that rings true here.
You learn things best by going through it, and to quote John C Maxwell, “sometimes you win, sometimes you learn”. This is the true value of getting an internship, something as elusive as gold medals these days - to be able to be in the shoes of future you and work out if it’s a job you could do and if you could enjoy.
Unfortunately, sticking with the finance theme, we have a limitation of time, which is where we turn to learning from others, either through speaking with them or by reading. Reading, as I heard put this week, is “downloading knowledge someone worked hard and went through ups and downs for years, within a few hours” - almost sounds like magic.
The concluding message is perhaps two-fold: if you find you’ve run into an issue going through an experience, don’t beat yourself up about it because that’s part of the gig - you only realise things on the way. Second, prioritise getting the experience of doing big, brave things, be prepared to make unforeseen silly mistakes and enjoy them (and take away what you learn from it).
Not really featuring rocket science in today’s post, but an entertaining story I hope. If you did find the menu appetising, let me know and you might just get an invite to an Adi-cheffed dinner soon! 😋
Podcast of the week🎙️
Deep Questions with Cal Newport: Ep. 367: What if AI Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This?
This is a contraflow discussion4 about AI, setting out a case for the stunted growth in AI over the past year, a disappointing new version of ChatGPT and misleading AI job market claims. Curious? Have a listen.
What I’m grateful for this week 🙏
Our kettle! Especially today, when my throat has felt uncomfortable all day, it’s given me some respite - it’s the only reason I’ve been able to write up our post today!
Quote of the week 💬
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out - Benjamin Franklin
If you’ve got this far, thank you - it means a lot. Here’s to a big comeback for the blog as it hits its 4th birthday very soon.
Adi
And the kettle
I realise I’m sounding quite sarcastic, (self-)deprecating and pretentious in my writing style today, but I hope that adds some (questionable) comedic fun to the piece - I’m certainly having fun!
Isn’t that a fascinating statement? ChatGPT is the almighty superbrain we’ve been longing for - the podcast of the week disagrees,
Yes, that’s a word from my driving theory revision - passed last week!