A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend I've known about seven years, and it came up that I had done improv - and he didn't know that. I thought it was something that people intrinsically knew about me: I used to do improv, I'm a Scorpio, I'm left-handed. You may have not known these things. Now you do.
We talked about it for a few minutes. It has been easily 15 years since I hit the stage, but I have said it before, and I'll say it again - my improv experience prepared me for life beyond the occasional Thursday night student show.
Nowadays, since I'm not doing a ton of classroom work, most of my improv takes place in the kitchen. Tonight, when I got home, I had two possible dinner ideas in mind. But my husband was feeling under the weather, and I offered to make soup. And so, in about 30 minutes, I had homemade chicken and wild rice soup. I didn't use a recipe. I just grabbed some basics, threw them together and voila, dinner!
I also made grilled cheese, because they always make soup better. Here's the secret to my grilled cheese success... I don't butter the bread. I use butter in the skillet, but I put mayo on the bread. Now, I have to do this a little covertly, because he's not a fan of mayo. Well, he likes wasabi mayo from Trader Joe's. But who doesn't?
So, a thin coat of Hellman's, and we're good to go.
But I was able to just use what we had to make something that was, in truth, better than anything I had in mind to cook. And we have a bunch left over. So that's lunch for the weekend. Yum.
That, in a nutshell, is why I will always prefer cooking to baking. Baking is a chemistry test. Cooking is poetry slam. And if it's terrible, so be it - you can always toss it and move on. That is the basic premise of improv, is it not?
So, that's the latest here. I'm stoked for the weekend. We have the cable guy coming Saturday morning, and I have a few social events scattered throughout the weekend. I really want to get to the Farmers Market - and really, I want corn, and melons. And it's not time for them yet, dammit.
So I'll improvise.
See what I did there?
ae
We talked about it for a few minutes. It has been easily 15 years since I hit the stage, but I have said it before, and I'll say it again - my improv experience prepared me for life beyond the occasional Thursday night student show.
Nowadays, since I'm not doing a ton of classroom work, most of my improv takes place in the kitchen. Tonight, when I got home, I had two possible dinner ideas in mind. But my husband was feeling under the weather, and I offered to make soup. And so, in about 30 minutes, I had homemade chicken and wild rice soup. I didn't use a recipe. I just grabbed some basics, threw them together and voila, dinner!
I also made grilled cheese, because they always make soup better. Here's the secret to my grilled cheese success... I don't butter the bread. I use butter in the skillet, but I put mayo on the bread. Now, I have to do this a little covertly, because he's not a fan of mayo. Well, he likes wasabi mayo from Trader Joe's. But who doesn't?
So, a thin coat of Hellman's, and we're good to go.
But I was able to just use what we had to make something that was, in truth, better than anything I had in mind to cook. And we have a bunch left over. So that's lunch for the weekend. Yum.
That, in a nutshell, is why I will always prefer cooking to baking. Baking is a chemistry test. Cooking is poetry slam. And if it's terrible, so be it - you can always toss it and move on. That is the basic premise of improv, is it not?
So, that's the latest here. I'm stoked for the weekend. We have the cable guy coming Saturday morning, and I have a few social events scattered throughout the weekend. I really want to get to the Farmers Market - and really, I want corn, and melons. And it's not time for them yet, dammit.
So I'll improvise.
See what I did there?
ae
Comments
The same is true of improv.