When do the little details matter?

As you may have heard me say on my live streams, things usually do not have to be perfect. Perfection is often unachievable even for professionals. I'm one of those people who tends to just add a little bit of this and a little bit of that and not really measure anything. However, some things do need to go right and it may seek like I'm ranting a little bit but I'm going to talk about the things that definitely do need to be perfect when it comes to food.

1. There must be a binding ingredient in your baking recipes. You may be able to get away with having a cake fall apart so it's more like a mud cake but cookies are a different story. Yesterday on my Vlogmas2018 highlight on my Instagram stories, I showed you guys some Christmas wreath cookies I made. What I didn't tell you on there is that I had no applesauce or bananas in the kitchen at the time. I expected to but someone in my family must've eaten them and because no one told me, I didn't know until the grocery stores were closed and I couldn't get more of them so I had to make do with cookies that fell apart as soon as I took them off the cookie sheet. So if you have someone to impress with your cookies, please do not leave out a binding ingredient. They are not all interchangeable so even though I had some that would've worked for other recipes, they would not have worked for this one.

2. This one is more for those who package produce in the grocery stores than for the home chef but in case any of you package fresh produce to be delivered to grocery stores, I'd like to see my berries come in better containers. They are out of season and a bit pricey for how few of them I'm getting so you can imagine my frustration after what happened last week. I bought a thing of blueberries (#treatingmyself!) and they were intact when I bagged my groceries. However, when I got to the car and put my groceries into the trunk, I saw that the container had popped open and there were blueberries all over the bag they were in. Luckily, I had a family member with me that time and instead of following my original plan of putting that bag in the trunk, I had them hold onto that bag as I was driving home so that it would stay upright and no blueberries would fall out and make a mess. When I got home and put the groceries away, what I did was after I put the other items in that bag away, I salvaged all the blueberries in there and put them in a different container that I could trust to not pop open and cause a mess of blueberries in the fridge. Thankfully none got smushed! I can't be the first to have this problem so if any of you are involved in packaging produce to get to the grocery stores, pretty please look into solving the container issue so it can at least get to the car without popping open.

3. Transparency. No, you don't need to be able to literally see through your food. But one thing that's non negotiable for me as a health foodie is that I want to know exactly what is in my food. My body is a temple and I don't want to desecrate it, so I want to know exactly what I am putting in my body. It may seem a bit cynical but here's the fun part of it: it's the perfect excuse to watch the barista make your drink when you go to Starbucks or whatever coffee shop you go to. Not that you really need an excuse to do so.

Now that you know some of my food related pet peeves, here are a few things that I can be more lenient about.

1. Any measurements for spices that you see in recipes is complete cow crud! Spices add flavor to recipes and some (if not all) have nutritional benefits but that's all they do. They are not essential to the structure of the recipe. Add however much of whatever spices you want and ignore any measurements you read.

2. This one should be obvious but I don't usually specifically look for vegan recipes. Making something vegan is a simple ingredient swap if you know how to do that. As a seasoned vegan, I do know how that all works and would be happy to do a post all about that if you guys would like to see one. I do however look for gluten free baking recipes because in many cases, gluten free all purpose flour and regular flour don't always work when substituted 1:1. I have one that says on the packaging that it does work 1:1 and I tested that with one recipe and it worked. I don't know if that's an isolated case or if it actually works more times than not but I'm testing it out and will hopefully find an answer to that question soon.

3. This one is not just when it comes to food, but is very applicable in all aspects of life. Going through a lot of dishes when cooking can cause both the dishwasher and sink to get full. I have had to learn how to separate what's urgent from what is important. Urgent tasks are things that do demand your immediate attention and it may be bothersome to have them on your to do list but they aren't all that helpful in reaching your long term goals. Important tasks help you to reach long term goals that you genuinely care about and I have found that life is more fulfilling when I prioritize my important tasks. It's nice to have things cleaned up in there but generally, taking care of the dishes is more urgent than it is important. My blog is important. My career is important. My family is important. Taking care of the dishes does demand my attention but I'm not going to hand wash every dish in the sink just because the dishwasher is full and running, and I'm also not going to unload and reload right away if I'm in the middle of something the very moment the dishwasher stops running because taking care of the dishes is urgent but it's not important. That's not to say I let the kitchen become an unsanitary disgusting place where one would need a hazmat suit just to enter. I certainly don't let that happen. But I am certainly not OCD about it either. It's not worth it to stress about the kitchen being absolutely perfect every second. We all have other things to do that are actually important and urgent tasks such as taking care of the dishes can wait a short while.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and can find my food related pet peeves (and the things I can relax about) relatable. What are some of your biggest pet peeves in the kitchen and what are some things you can relax about?