Yes, I’m Finally bringing the blog back!

and i have some thoughts about it to share with you…obviously 🙄 because that’s what a blog is.

A chef with a recipe blog?! Innovative, groundbreaking – I know. But, truth-be-told it’s taken me a while to love this idea of blogging. Who knows, and who cares, why. The important thing is, is that IT IS HAPPENING! And there is one nugget of wisdom from my personal breakthrough that’s relevant to the vision Chef Lauren’s Table – MINDSET.

“But isn’t it simple for a chef to publish recipes online?” You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I mean, how hard could it be to just jot down what you did to make that dish for dinner, take a few photos, and hit publish? As I type this concept in its simplicity, I’m actually wondering the same thing. Why has this been “so hard?” I’ve certainly kept up a cooking practice these last several years…Cooked for tons of people in various styles, and have an overwhelming amount of food images taking up space on my phone…

So maybe, more specifically, why I have I been telling myself that it is “so hard” to share my recipes with people? (Here’s that nugget I was talking about!).

Mindset has been a hot topic for the last few years in the cooking coaching I’ve been doing, in various iterations of my online programs. Another groundbreaking idea here – but hear me out…

What we tell ourselves inside our heads matters. So, in my breakthrough example from above, if I tell myself that blogging is hard, then that’s my experience. If I tell myself that writing down a recipe is hard, then that’s my experience. With me so far?

Now let’s bring this same idea from the office into the kitchen…

If you tell yourself that it’s hard to eat healthy, then it most likely will be. If you tell yourself that you’re not a good cook, then you most likely won’t be. If you tell yourself that it’s too expensive to buy healthy ingredients, then… I think you get the idea 😉 

Okay, so what’s that concept have to do with this “Blog Trailer” article? As I sit here wondering the very same thing, I’m reminded of just how many aspects of our lives are influenced by our mindset. Mine in my work, and sharing my food passion with the world. Maybe you, and the reason you’ve felt stuck in your healthy lifestyle journey.

What I’ve always noticed over the years in my own cooking practice is this: whatever the story is that’s running in my mind, tends to inform my attitude about the task, and as a result, my experience of it.

For example, as a pastry chef and cake decorator in my first life as a chef, I would have to make various frostings and there was one recipe in particular that was my favorite one to hate – Chantilly Cream. It required more steps, it was sometimes fussy, and naturally it was our most popular cake so I had to make it like, ALL. THE. TIME. But one day something changed…

I began to notice that if I could psych myself up before making it, I actually started to feel neutral about this task. And before I knew it, there was no longer any friction to the previously daunting and dreadful recipe of Chantilly Cream. It just became “one of those things,” because I was able to take the negative charge out of the experience. The only thing that changed was my mindset around it.

At this same time in my pastry career, I was exploring the benefits of eating a more plant-based diet. And of course, I was experimenting in the kitchen at home. So I thought, “Hey, if I could change how I felt about that frosting recipe, maybe I can influence this lifestyle transformation with the power of mindset too…”

So that’s exactly what I did, the specifics of which I’ll share in another post. 

But for now, if I take my own experience with that dang Chantilly, and apply it to this previously torturous endeavor of blogging, I get excited about what could shift. It’s time I put my own mindset about blogging under the microscope to start making the changes that I know I want to see; to share thoughts that I know someone needs to hear.

Naturally, it’s usually a lot easier to help others than it is to help ourselves, so I’ll also add a double scoop of grace for my tardiness here. It’s okay that I haven’t been blogging since before it was cool, that I don’t have hundreds of recipes already circulating on the web, and that a post hasn’t gone viral yet. 

Just like it’s okay that perhaps you haven’t fully mastered the art of healthy cooking, that you still sometimes throw out rotten food, or that you eat something you know you “shouldn’t.” Or, my favorite one, that you aren’t always a strict vegan! (SPOILER: my hand is raised, hello! 👋🏻).

When I try to uncover why this has been so challenging for me, I always come back to the same conclusion. I am simply too present to the process of cooking to stop to write everything down. I’m cooking with a different set of ingredients, a different desired end result, and an ever-changing quantity that I’m after as I go.

If you’re truly cooking with your heart, tasting as you go, and adjusting accordingly, it’s actually a bit of a challenge to break that creative and intuitive flow.

You see, a recipe isn’t a list of ingredients and instructions, it’s a feeling. It’s knowing what to add when, seasoning along the way, and being ultra-present in the process of cooking. It’s knowing how to troubleshoot at every stage, staying committed to your cooking practice, and not giving up when something doesn’t come out “just like the picture.”

I’ve realized recently that adding an inspired blog writing practice to my business might be the thing that’s been missing all along – a soup recipe without garlic, if you will (a cardinal sin in the flavor layering process!). Maybe for me, and Chef Lauren’s Table, a blog is a way to communicate my thoughts, musings, and inspirations fresh from the kitchen – if you know me, you know these things keep me talking!

For yours truly, this first requires writing down my recipes, something that the future of Chef Lauren’s Table depends on – so we can check this box off right here, right now! And second, doing all the technical gymnastics of actually publishing a viable blog post. There’s a lot that happens behind the scenes, and for a long time, I had an allergic reaction to the mere thought of the idea 🤧

Sure, recipes will be tested and shared so that you can bring me into your kitchen. But my hope is that by expressing my authentic self, in the form of Chef Lauren, I’ll plant a seed of change and possibility in your open mind and empty belly, inspiring you to add more plants to your plate. Because that’s really all it’s about when you’re at the table with me.

SO, here I am, in my typical “better late than never” style, reviving my blog, turning up the heat on these ideas that have been simmering, and finally…finishing this dang recipe for a business that changes lives through cooking by adding the secret ingredient – ME! THE WHOLE ME!!