Cookin’ Up Stress Relief

Ever had one of those days coming up at work where you have to do something that scares the bejeebers out of you?

When I’m not romping around with horses and dogs, I create training materials and train employees on how to use the new corporate software we are rolling out to replace our old legacy system.

Yawn. I know.

Previously, I’ve been training people in Manufacturing, using Word documents. But now that I’m training Customer Service and redoing other materials for a software upgrade, the company decided to purchase software to help me develop interactive training that can be used for self study as well as instructor led classes.

Anyway, now that you have that little bit of boring background, here’s the nervous part. The company who sold us this training development software, a rather gigantic company, was having a sales meeting and invited my boss and I to come talk about why we bought the software and how we are using it.

I didn’t actually know I was going to a sales meeting. I thought we were doing some little podcast in a room with a couple people, which I was nervous enough about. But when we arrived, I saw there was a big table of food, a webcast setup that people around the world were signing in to, and there were about 60 people in the room attending in person.

My boss and I sat on stools at the front of the room, the VP kicked off the meeting, and my boss and I took turns answering questions.

I think we done good. I even made people laugh a couple times. It was, dare I say, almost fun. And hey, I received a man’s large shirt with the company logo on it for participating. Cool…

But all that nervous energy kind of sticks with me for awhile.

When I got home, I cooked, which is kind of funny because cooking kind of stresses me out. But that’s only when I cook for other people. When I cook for myself, I love it. How things end up is always a surprise and this recipe was no different.

I skimmed the recipe and bought a few ingredients over the weekend that I didn’t have on my shelf. But as usual my skimming made me miss a lot of details. Who would have thought that you could possibly need a FULL cup of basil leaves?! Does this container look like it held enough?

Obviously not. So I threw in a little oregano. Hey, it was green, it was another kind of leaf, how off could it be?

But the “pesto” was very unpesto-textured, but it tasted okay, not like pesto, but interesting. And the cheese was supposed to go into the food processor to make pesto but which cheese? Just the parmesan, which is what it sounded like.

Or the ricotta too, which according to the recipe I was supposed to fold into the beans, tomatoes, pasta shells, pesto, and broth mixture.

And the bread crumbs. Were they supposed to be dry? I only had a loaf of fresh bread so I used that. A cup didn’t seem like enough and I should have added more because the crunchiness after baking did add a lot to the flavor.

So many ingredients! And complicated. I didn’t end up eating until 8:00.

And just to let you know, the tree is still standing. But the guy lurking behind the tree is a little creepy.

Java seems to like this particular ornament, which I have found on the rug a couple times now. I put nonbreakable, expendable ornaments on the reachable branches.

Shy will bat the ornaments once in awhile. But mostly she just likes to sit on this blanket by the fireplace. Cats just do not look as happy as dogs…

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8 Comments

  1. Way to go Maery on your web cast! It is probably a good thing you didn’t know ahead of time. It just would have added more stress and it wouldn’t have gone any better. I bet you felt awesome when it was done and I hope you were darn proud of yourself, because that kind of thing can be really intimidating! So kudos to you:-) Your food creations always end up looking great. Perhaps you should have a food event at your place and we could all add to the feast. We used to do stuff like that more frequently and it seems like we just quit doing it. Sharing a meal is a fine thing:-) I hope you are unstressed now. Kathleen

  2. Kathleen – Good idea. I’ve been wanting to do something like that. I wish I had one of those tried and true recipes that most people seem to have for those sorts of gatherings. And yes, probably was a good thing I didn’t know what I was walking into. I would have made myself sick with fear.

    Lori – I would have loved to have you there. Heck, I’d love to have you nearby to teach me how to cook all the things you make.

  3. I bet you were terrifically yourself in the meeting. You have a very funny slightly off (in a good way) manner in person. It’s very refreshing. 🙂
    That pasta looked great! (I’d pick out the meat, but it looked pickable, and yummy>)

  4. Your pasta looks fantastic. Sounds like you did a great job at your meeting! Makes you wonder what Java is thinking when she keeps picking out that same ornament. I bet Shy is just waiting until no one is looking to have fun.

  5. A whole cup of basil leaves…WoW! Your pasta looks great!

    I would of loved to been a little mouse so I could sneak in a listen to your meeting. It sounds like ya did a marvelous job!

    You sound good girl! God bless and have a terrific day sweetie!!! :o)

  6. The whole webcast thing does sound stressful but it sounds like you ended up doing well!

    Cook away! I have to admit that I hate to cook but I’m glad that others like doing it (or I’d starve!).

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